NCJ Number
149754
Date Published
1992
Length
262 pages
Annotation
This book profiles three institutions for women in 16th Century and 17th Century Italian cities of Florence and Pistoia to show that women's institutions of early modern Europe pioneered in the development of key social institutions.
Abstract
The 16th and 17th Centuries in Catholic Europe witnessed the growth of new institutions designed to house repentant prostitutes and girls and women at risk of becoming prostitutes. This little-known surge in institution building arose out of the Catholic reform movement and the Counter Reformation. In Western societies from the 16th Century onward, far more types of gender-specific institutions have been created for women than for men. The institutions for women served many social functions, usually including the control of women's sexuality. Representing a new residential option for women beyond the traditional ones of marriage or convent, these institutions were "asylums" in a dual sense, operating as both sites of internment and shelters from harm. The author shows how the multi- functional women's institutions of the early modern era served as the prototypes for a variety of asylums for women that emerged in later centuries, including hostels, homes for unwed mothers, and battered women's shelters. In a major revision of the historiography of social institutions, this book argues that the women's institutions of early modern Europe played a pioneering role in developing techniques and institutional forms in the fields of corrections and social welfare. A 408-item bibliography and a subject index