1. The Wife's Resentment by Delarivier Manley
Specifically, Manley highlights the disparity between the belief that a woman's sexual chastity was priceless and the extent to which this supposedly invaluable entity was treated as a bargaining tool, a material representation of the value of a "proper" woman. ... Though sexual chastity may have been considered an entity "whose price was inestimable" it certainly was not above being traded like a material commodity - so long as it came with the proper packaging. Thus, the text reveals the paradox: sexual chastity was not a measure of how truly virtuous a woman is, but...
- Word Count: 1986
- Approx Pages: 8
- Grade Level: Graduate