On Fri, 20 Feb 1998, Richard Landes wrote:
> are you suggesting that it is never with their assent? i wd have thought
> attitudes wd run the gamut, and especially women who were there against
> their will might be interested in abduction. we know men jumped the wall to
> "see" what was out there. why not women?
>
Naturally, I would never say never. On the other side, Power includes
translations of sources which describe really horrifying instances of
abduction and rape in her appendix but writes in the body of her text as
though she had never heard of such a thing. There is no question that
nuns sometimes eloped nor was it unheard of that they simply strayed off
from the straignt and narrow without leaving home. But every effort I
found to tabulate or systematize local studies of this behavior revealed
that it was a fairly minor problem. Women whose parents determined their
fate without consultation were numerous and many were probably not happy
about the choice (whether of marriage or the convent) but most (we must
assume) made the best of things rather than lose their fortunes, their
comfort, their reputations and possibly their physical well-being in a
flight to freedom. In contrast, the fictional tradition of women made
mad by lust, etc. seems to suggest that the only contented nuns were
those whose convents had been turned into brothels.
Jo Ann
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