I decided to look up the Julia Mary Cartwright Ady book again. I'd had a weird experience on Friday as I was sitting on a bench, eating tacos by a Friday night market. I felt this sensation of excitement, as if seeing through the eyes of someone who was part of a procession with a bunch of people at night, and some lighting was involved (not electrical but candles or lamps maybe) and all were part of this energy and had chosen someone to be the leader, and this leader was going to usher in some changes...most of the people were very excited and happy, and felt they were like his followers doing the work of God. That I associated with the book...I found a part about the duke giving his wife a gift of some land. And both of their portraits were on the deed, in medallion form. I thought I haven't seen those before...so I tried to look one up...I found this...Medallion, at the center of a lunette, with a portrait of Beatrice D'Este. And I thought to myself, I wish that were easier to find, because I feel like it is the closest to what I think she actually looked like. And I could imagine her being in a place with no air-conditioning, but with a view of some kind of courtyard or street area, surrounded by people, feeling hot...
Then something really weird happened, because I thought the likeness and the hair reminded me of an impression I had when I was younger...this impression I had was of a woman in a big fancy place but I thought maybe she was like a prostitute or part of a brothel. I thought, oh, that's different, they are separate. But then...I thought...are they? With the "brothel" impression (which came at me quite a long time ago, perhaps even while I was still a teenager) I felt like she didn't really have much say over what was done or what happened to her, but she got a "customer" who was caring towards her and she felt grateful, although it was still a situation in which she did not much say over what happened to her. Also, I felt like it was not the most private. Like other people were kind of around and aware of what was going on and doing their own things...INTERESTING...I got a little bit mad, also. So, I thought. The "brothel/prostitute situation"...was actually...the upperclass marriage situation? WHAT?? Could that really be? WOW.
Maybe it was also because I read this...
It's idealizing and there's a comment on the bottom from one "cnocnoc":
Galeazzo Sanseverino was no-one's 'slave' and you do him a great disservice to describe him as such.
I thought, ha ha...
I thought something like that too when I read it...
"cnocnoc" continues:
It would be more accurate to to describe females of those times as highly valuable exchangeable 'goods', who were used in arranged marriages for financial and status gain. Many were 'disposed' of when they were not of a quality sufficient for those purposes. 'Chattel' is a word that was often used in factual historical definition.
Then after processing that for a bit, I got something new. I felt like I could see that there was a time when she and her husband were in a place, like a chamber, and there were nice things around...nice cloths, maybe coins or jewelry or things of that nature...and although they cared for each other...they were not in accordance with one another. I started to ask myself questions about this. Did she say 'No,' to him a lot? NO. Did she say 'No,' to him sometimes? YES. If she said 'No,' did he try to ignore what she said against her wishes? YES. Did she acquiesce? NO. Did he get back at her by getting a mistress? YES. That is, to her, it felt like that was his punishment of her for not giving in to him. And also...I thought...they were not great at talking about feelings. Talking about feelings would have been something like this: HER: I don't feel like getting pregnant. HIM: I feel rejected. THEM: Talk it out, work out some kind of compromise. Instead it was like...No, okay fine then, I will leave you alone and go get a mistress. This is sad. Why? Because they were people who really liked each other. They weren't enemies at all. This is like traitor behavior if two people actually like and listen to each other in other aspects of life. Have these problems disappeared in the world since then? I don't think that they have. I feel like this is part of why things went so far downhill for him after she died. If he'd felt like he'd always been the best to her and she died anyway, he would've been sad, but wouldn't have felt such failure. One more thing is maybe she did miss an opportunity to tell him that she had a foreboding that she would not survive, or that the child was sick. What if she could have survived even if her baby had not, but since her body was also broken down because of her depressed emotional state, it made it worse. I think they were supposed to have a better relationship and communicate better and be role models for more equal partnership. Who knows, what if some early legislation about more rights for women could have been passed or something? But it is all so old...it's an old story now...
After thinking about all that, I kind of wanted a drink. Instead I went for a walk, and although I was still on the ground and walking down streets and feeling hot, I could feel a bit lighter...it's like something of her spirit was hovering around me. It was quite light and playful. I almost bought myself ice cream but the shop was crowded so I got a taco instead. I ate the taco and I could sense she did feel very light and happy at times. And she had certain feelings of freedom and loved nature and she could be surrounded by beautiful landscape, and those were good feelings, and those are also accessible today.
And that's what happened after I dusted and vacuumed.