Falk’s Reviews > The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice > Status Update

"Certain convents did maintain the high ideals of spiritual quest for salvation through withdrawal from the world, but many others were much less restrictive. And some, inhabited by bright and lively young women of the upper classes, took on quite a different tone reminiscent of a cross between the courts of love of the High Middle Ages and the temple prostitution of the ancient world." (p. 77)

"A promise of marriage was not always a peaceful step on the road to fornication. Courtship and sexuality still retained a considerable level of the brutal directness traditionally associated with feudal mores. It was not atypical to begin a relationship with rape, move on to a promise of marriage, and continue with an affair." (p. 31)