The Renaissance’s attitude towards gender and sexuality was completely different from that of the Middle Ages, which considered women as dangerous sexual creatures. "For the first time in Western history," for example, "men stressed the fact that females should be educated. The Platonic orientation in humanist thought may have spurred them to do so" (Bell, 182). (mohja)Actually, the primary purpose behind the call for women’s education was not to heighten her position in society, or to “overturn her subordinate domestic role”, but to make her a better wife and mother. Indeed, it was only the high rank women who were allowed to be educated*. What equated women’s book-learning in the Middle Ages with black magic and disgrace, now, became a privilege not every woman can acquire. In addition, the Reform movement called for “a revision of religious positions on marriage.”(mohja) This “revision” led to the decline of misogamy. The rejection of misogamy and the confirmation of the importance of the marital statues strengthened the position of woman in the family. An extremely …show more content…
She is a noble woman who has fallen in love with the Christian knight, Tancred, but instead of falling in love with him while he was the captive of her father, Erminia has fallen in love with him while she was his captive, and after he has defeated and killed her father. Subsequently, because of this major shift in powers, the Muslim heroine in this model does not need to convert, and to transfer the Muslim “gold” and land to the Christians, since her father’s kingdom has already fallen*. Erminia is thus taken away from the center of the primary action in the play to “a secondary feminine