HISC 27 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Pomegranate, Piccolo, Fornication
Document Summary
Toward the end of the middle ages, new instruments and institutions for containing sexual activity emerged, for individuals both within marriage and without. After centuries of hesitation about the acceptability of sex even in holy matrimony, the. Because sexual relations could produce a child, and therefore an heir, popular belief held that consummation of sexual relations, not some deeper spiritual or personal bond, made a marriage, even when a woman was violated against her will. In renaissance venice, the state"s prosecutor (avogadori) could bring charges against a man for fornication for failing to carry through on a promise or marriage and try him before a court called the council of forty. One assumes that marriage was often the end result of such brutal directness; occasionally when it was not, as in the case of giacomello zaratino"s violent wooing of. While accepting her flower [of virginity] he promised to take her as his wife.
