man dignity, personal freedom, and individual beliefs. Due to a major change in culture, the prospects of marriage for women of the upper classes were drastically reduced. To ensure concentration of inheritance on a single line and prevent dispersal of resources through the payment of dowries, many families among these classes tried to limit marriages to one or two in each generation. This did not leave the eldest daughters many options. Many of them were forced into convents, forced claustration, or they entered of their own free will because they felt that they had no other choice. This led to increased pressure on the convents and the cost of placing daughters in them grew so high that many families could not even afford that. Woman’s power and standing in the family depended crucially on the possession of a dowry and refusal of the option of marriage left these women dowerless and effectively disinherited. This left the “excess” daughters only two choices, life as secular spinster or life as a prostitute (Cox 532-534). Many other young women were introduced to the profession at a very early age by their mothers, courtesans themselves who were no longer young and beautiful and were unable to support their daughters any more. Some daughters even had their fees paid directly to their mothers (Rosenthal “Terze Rime”). This practice of selling off daughters to prostitution slowed down after 1570, though, due to a law passed in the Council of Ten in 1563. The ruling attempted to prevent mothers from prostituting their young daughters for the purpose of receiving economic support. The senate legislated to punish any person involved in violating the chastity of an unwed girl, or anyone who received favors from young women, especially if minors. Rather than punish the young girl, whom the senate regarded as the innocent victim, the ruling prescribes that the offenders, usually mothers, who prostitute ...
