Womanly Glory and Consolation: Lucrezia Marinella (1571-1653) Essortationi (1645)

Lucrezia Marinella by Giacomo Piccini, 1652

​Lucrezia Marinella, Venetian 17th century philosopher, wrote lives of saints, romances, and a famous contribution to the Querelle de Femmes in which she defended women’s superiority to men, turning some of Aristotles’ arguments on their heads: The Nobility and Excellence of Women, and the Vices and Defects of Men (1601). Women, she said, should work to develop their intellect, naturally superior to men’s, and to do so, they should not be confined to the home. Then, at the age of 74, she apparently recanted all this in a final book, Exhortations to Women and Others if they Please (1645), claiming that “A woman’s reputation must not leave the walls of her home”. 
 
Women, she seems to argue, this time following Aristotle, ought not to pursue an intellectual life, but should focus on the domestic arts and virtues. This is what they are naturally suited for, and what will make them, and their husbands, happiest. 
 
What happened there? Did Marinella simply become more conservative as she grew older, denying younger generations of women what she had taken for herself? That’s possible, but before we demote Marinella from the ranks of feminist heroine to those Boomerdom, let’s consider other possibilities. First, let’s look at what the Exhortations have to say about domestic work, its value, and whom it is good for. 

Marinella’s spin on Aristotle
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Red figured pyxis with two women, one holding a needlecraft and the other a spindle. Paris, Louvre Museum

One reason why it is easy to fall in with the conclusion that Marinella is recanting her previous arguments for women’s intellectual powers is that she tells us, in the very first Exhortation, that she changed her mind about something, something we regard as fairly fundamental to feminist principles, i.e. women’s ability to go in and out of the home. While previously, the author tells us, she had thought that it was a matter of men’s tyranny that women were generally confined to the home and thus unable to participate in public life, whether politics or philosophy, she now thinks that this is unlikely. With more mature judgment, she says, she is confident that women’s seclusion is in fact the result of ‘nature, divine providence and will’. This follows from the fact, she says, that any condition upheld by violence is short lasting (she cites Machiavelli) and that women have been confined to the home for a long time. As to the reason for this natural order of things, she says, it is simply the ancient argument for the division of the spheres:
“While the woman takes care of the house, the man conducts commerce and deals outside of the house, that these different tasks might result in harmonious peace and happiness” (p.50)
 
While she appeals to the Ancients to establish the division of the spheres, Marinella, puts a different spin on the role and interaction of the spheres. She starts by saying, reading Aristotle in a very unorthodox way, that the home is basically a small city, that managing the one is like managing the other. Moreover, because the city is an agglomeration of households, there is a connection between the state of the ones and that of the other. Well run-homes, she says, lead to well-run cities (p.53). The – un-Aristotelian – conclusion that is left unsaid is that if women run homes, and run them well, they are also responsible for cities being well-run, while men who run the city only piggy-back on women’s work. Perhaps the Exhortations are not so removed from the Nobility of Women after all!
 
Another – radical – difference between Marinella and Aristotle is that right from the beginning, she defends household crafts as objectively worth doing. Her way of establishing that is to claim that men, when they can do so without being seen, will gladly retire to the women’s sphere and do embroidery ‘enjoy womanly glory and consolation’ (p.53). For Aristotle (at least the author Marinella thought of as Aristotle, the author of the Economics) this would be unthinkable as he believed that participating in the business of the private sphere is deeply shameful for a man.
 

Others if they please
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The argument of the Exhortations that is most difficult to reconcile with her previous book, is women should not engage in intellectual pursuits but stick with the work of managing their homes. “Let us be satisfied with our ignorance” she – rather hypocritically – tells her readers. Intellectual pursuits, she says, are dangerous, and liable to make you crazy and turn you into hermits living in poverty (p. 79). 
 
Is Marinella simply being elitist, and telling other women that they are not cut out for the life of the intellect? Yes, at least in part. But she is doing more than that. First, she is telling men the very same thing. The Exhortations are addressed not just to women, but ‘others if they please’, and that means, in the 17th century, men. 
 
In her picture of harmony, men are acquisitors and women preservers. If the men of the household become philosophers, there will be nothing for the women to preserve, hence no harmony. Note also that many of her examples concern men, rather than women. In Exhortation 4, where she praises silence over speech, most of her examples come from statesmen or male philosophers. By then it should have become clear that she is exhorting not just women, but, as the title says very clearly, ‘others if they please’. 
 
Marinella’s Exhortations are to men and women, to help them realise the value of domestic work, both objectively – even the Goddess Minerva, she says, is prouder of her textile crafts than her achievements at war – and for the sake of humanity – the welfare of the city depends on homes being well-run. This, more than a call to women to give up intellectual pretentions, is a rallying cry to those who were probably not interested in becoming philosophers in the first place, to come into their powers as wielders of divine instruments (Minerva’s distaff) and makers and upholders of strong cities. Marinella does not send home the women who would be philosophers as much as she empowers those who would not. 
 
In its context, it is fairly clear that Marinella recommends that most women stick to managing their home. But does Marinella think that all women are essentially housewives? What if she believes that for some women, what comes most naturally is writing, not sewing? She leaves open the possibility that some women might find philosophy more fitting an occupation than housework, brings us back to the original supposition that Exhortations is not meant to discourage women, in particular, from intellectual pursuits, but show that for some, domestic pursuits are just as valuable and should not be shunned, by either women or men.
 
There’s no doubt but that the book is elitist – only a few will truly flourish as writers, others should not even try – but also offers a re-valuing of traditionally feminine work – men too, would enjoy working with wool, she says.