Rise of the Libertinas

Before seriously considering 17^th and 18^th century theatre and libertinism, I had become familiar, through classes in Victorian studies, with the concept of decadence which emphasizes “drugged perception, sexual experimentation, and the deliberate inversion of conventional moral, social, and artistic norms” (Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 76).  My Victorian professor asked whether women could be decadent and if so, was their decadence recognized by the same characteristics that defined male decadence.  I connected the idea of the libertine with that of the decadent because both assume a male subject and center on counter-societal behavior, manifest in alternative sexuality, a disregard for social mores and taboos and a fascination with the bizarre and grotesque.  I asked the same question of libertinism that my professor asked of decadence: can women be libertines and if so, do female libertines look and behave like their male counterparts? 

A libertine is defined by the Gage Canadian Dictionary as “a person who lives without regard to convention or accepted moral standards, especially a man who leads a dissolute, immoral life; rake”.  The definition does not specify that only a man can be a libertine, but emphasizes that men are particularly adept at the role. 

During the Restoration and 18^th century men and women were held to two standards of behavior and despite the fact that both men and women can lead dissolute, immoral and rakish lives, these qualities will appear differently between the genders because each are held to a different standard of morality.  Socially, men were less likely to be chastised for promiscuous behavior and logically, the truth of his sexual exploitations may never be revealed because men do not get ‘knocked up’ and women would not be quick to admit to sexual liaisons.  Conversely women were expected to live according to high moral standards and even one indiscretion, a rape or any hint of sexuality whether willing or forced could leave her socially rejected and morally tainted in the eyes of her peers.  What was a reputation destroying act for a woman was all in good fun for men. 

Laura Leigh’s dissertation, The Female Libertine from Dryden to Defoe, states that there were many “legal and ethical problems women encountered in a culture that continued to see women’s free exercise of the mind and body as amoral, dangerous, and anti-social” and continues saying that women writers in the 17^th century “frequently came under attack from detractors who called their bodies, identities, and mental states into question” (18).  Society had issues in dealing with women who did not adopt the characteristics of the ideal woman and did not tolerate variation from that ideal.  Since women were expected to embody the impossible role of the angel or pure woman, (emphasis on impossible!) does it follow that all normal women were in essence a variation from the ideal? libertines--libertinas?  No women can live up to the expectations set on her gender by society, and she thereby becomes “a person who lives without regard to convention or accepted moral standards”, which is the definition of a libertine. 

BitsaLit signing off, ready to flout society's expectations and eat cheesecake.  Ta.