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Chapter 2. Gendering emotions
- Central European University Press
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87 Chapter 2 Gendering emotions Emotions, whether lost or retrieved, come in socially specific and culturally diverse forms. Honour, for instance , was an emotional disposition deeply ingrained in nineteenth-century European society, and yet, it took multiple shapes and translated into different practices. The latter varied according to social class, age, religion, and national belonging. Most conspicuously , they varied according to gender. Although honour was relevant to both men and women, its manifestations and meaning differed vastly. For women, honour was exclusively linked to their sex and sexual behaviour. For men, it was more socially complex and could be attacked by a wide range of offenses, from verbal insults to a slap in the face. The gravest offense, however, was also a sexual one, namely the seduction of a female family member. In such cases, husbands, brothers or fathers felt dishonoured in their own right and challenged in their quest for manliness. 88 Even though male honour had a sexual subtext as well, there remained a crucial gender difference. First, while it was a subtext for men, it was the main text for women. Second, men were masters of their own honour while women were not. Female honour, once impaired and insulted, could not be restored by the woman herself. Strictly speaking, it was lost forever. Even male family members could not redeem it. By calling the offender to account, they protected their own honour, since a “fallen” woman never got her honour back. In contrast, a man found ample opportunity to prove himself honourable and silence those who dared to sully the shining shield of his honour. Honour thus provides a good example of how emotions and their related practices were gendered. Here as everywhere, gender differences, as Natalie Zemon Davis has shown in her work, are a fascinating research topic. This applies to every field, and every period of history. Emotions are no exception, as Fiction in the Archives has eloquently proven. When appealing for clemency, a woman who had killed her husband would give different reasons in comparison with a man who had killed his wife. While men invoked rage that had led them to retaliate against a violent wife, women preferred to speak about anguish and desperation. They did so, in Davis’s view, because rage was not a proper [54.242.96.240] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 07:15 GMT) 89 excuse for them. Even if women were known to be furious, and legitimately so, their rage was considered harmful. It was passion rather than affect, and thus far more enduring and dangerous. While men were deemed hot and dry beings whose indignation could erupt in short fits of rage and aggression, women were thought to be cold and humid. This allowed them to harbour long-term and premeditated passions detrimental to their own well-being and that of others.111 Natalie Zemon Davis’s stories and pardon tales were about the sixteenth century which, as the evocation of humoral pathology reveals, was still in great proximity to ancient concepts of human nature. What, then, happened when those references gradually passed into oblivion? How did modern science, as it developed from the seventeenth century onwards, change ideas about men and women, about their temperaments and character? What did it disclose about their emotions, their passions, affects, sentiments, and appetites? And how did this new knowledge shape social norms and practices? Rage and insult To answer those questions, encyclopaedias offer a good starting point. They began to be published at 90 the beginning of the eighteenth century and were explicitly aimed at informing the public about any matters of interest. These included technological innovations as much as debates on moral philosophy. Encyclopaedias processed knowledge generated in all fields of empirical research and metaphysical reflection . They did so in order to enlighten readers and familiarise them with what learned men and scientists had discovered about nature and culture. At the same time, they helped to canonise certain forms and contents of knowledge (and discredit others). But they also kept pace with the dynamics of knowledge production . Unlike earlier forms of lexica, the famous Britannica or the German Brockhaus appeared in numerous editions that quickly succeeded one another and thus accounted for the rapid expansion and innovation of available knowledge. The first German-language encyclopaedia was published between 1734 and 1754. With sixty-eight volumes and approximately 288.000 entries, it became the most comprehensive lexical project of its time. Volume sixty-three from 1750...