A Virtuous Woman in the Renaissance

In this article, I analyze selected texts of epithalamia and epitaphs, on the basis of which we can conclude that it is no accident that male poets paid so much attention to women in these two genres. This is so because in wedding songs they needed a virtuous wife, and in funeral songs they had to prove that they had found one. In both types of works, the catalogue and the laudatio of female virtues are very similar. The difference is visible in the description of appearance, which in epitaphs is of secondary importance, because the body disintegrates after death, unlike the immortal soul. In the sixth epitaph to Elżbieta Szydłowiecka, Piotr Rojzjusz emphasizes the grace and beauty of the deceased, but puts them between two other virtues: kindness and holiness. All virtue lay at rest in the grave with this beautiful woman. The funeral laudatio coincides with the laudatio in wedding songs. The woman was to be the model of a good wife, a mother, and a Christian. The topos of the good wife required of her: good birth, love for her husband, piety, decency, honesty, modesty, unconditional obedience to her husband, and lack of a quarrelsome disposition (the epitaphs lack pulchra and pecuniosa). The topos of a good mother, however, includes giving birth and raising children. A good mother had to be pious, modest, and caring for her family and children. In each of these roles, the description of virtues is strongly prescriptive. A woman becomes a being programmed by nature and patriarchal society to fulfill the role of an obedient daughter, a virtuous wife, a caring mother, and a good housewife.

In this article, I analyze selected texts of epithalamia and epitaphs, on the basis of which we can conclude that it is no accident that male poets paid so much attention to women in these two genres. This is so because in wedding songs they needed a virtuous wife, and in funeral songs they had to prove that they had found one. In both types of works, the catalogue and the laudatio of female virtues are very similar. The difference is visible in the description of appearance, which in epitaphs is of secondary importance, because the body disintegrates after death, unlike the immortal soul. In the sixth epitaph to Elżbieta Szydłowiecka, Piotr Rojzjusz emphasizes the grace and beauty of the deceased, but puts them between two other virtues: kindness and holiness. All virtue lay at rest in the grave with this beautiful woman. The funeral laudatio coincides with the laudatio in wedding songs. The woman was to be the model of a good wife, a mother, and a Christian. The topos of the good wife required of her: good birth, love for her husband, piety, decency, honesty, modesty, unconditional obedience to her husband, and lack of a quarrelsome disposition (the epitaphs lack pulchra and pecuniosa). The topos of a good mother, however, includes giving birth and raising children. A good mother had to be pious, modest, and caring for her family and children. In each of these roles, the description of virtues is strongly prescriptive. A woman becomes a being programmed by nature and patriarchal society to fulfill the role of an obedient daughter, a virtuous wife, a caring mother, and a good housewife.