The evolution of women's asylums since 1500 : from refuges for ex-prostitutes to shelters for battered women / Sherrill Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Sherrill.

Series:

Studies in the history of sexuality

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women's shelters--Italy--History--16th century.

Women's shelters.

Women's shelters--Italy--History--17th century.

Women--Italy--Social conditions.

Women.

History.

Italy.

Social conditions.

Physical Description:

viii, 262 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.

Summary:

The sixteenth and seventeenth 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. Cohen presents a portrait of life in three such institutions for women in the Italian cities of Florence and Pistoia. These institutions represented a new residential option for women beyond the traditional options of marriage or convent. They were "asylums" in a dual sense, operating as both sites of internment and shelters from harm. Cohen demonstrates how the multifunctional 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, Cohen 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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0195051645

OCLC:

24544489