Muliebrity (pronounced myoo-lee-eb-ri-tee)
(1) The
condition of being a woman.
(2) Femininity;
womanly nature or qualities.
(3) Effeminacy,
softness
(4) In physiology, the state of puberty in the human female (rare).
1585–1595: From the Late Latin muliēbritās (womanhood) from muliēbris (womanly) from mulier (woman). The original meaning in the 1590s was "womanhood, state of puberty in a woman", this corresponding to virility in men. The Latin source mulier (a woman) has for centuries been held to be comparative to the stem of mollis (soft, weak) to which there have long been phonetic objections, but no alternative theory has been offered. This was the source also in the oldest known customary and common law texts of the sense of mulier being "a woman; a wife" and, as an adjective, "born in wedlock." Related was muliebral (of or pertaining to a woman) and muliebrious (effeminate), both documented from the 1650s. The later mulierosity (an excessive fondness for women) is perhaps a more attractive term than those many would prefer. In pre-modern medicine, in early anatomy and medical texts, the pudenda muliebria was euphemistic for "vagina"; in later use in physiology it came to refer simply to the state of puberty in a female. In early literary use it had the sense of “the state of attainment of womanhood following maidenhood” but well before the twentieth century had come instead to be a general expression of youthful feminine beauty. The –ity suffix was borrowed from the French -ité, from the Middle French -ité, from the Old French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it. It was cognate with the Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High German -ida (-th) and the Old English -þo, -þu & -þ (-th). It was used to form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of conforming to the adjective's description. Muliebrity is a noun and muliebral & muliebrile are adjectives, the noun plural is muliebrities. Muliebrity long ago shifted in meaning from its late sixteenth century origins and is now probably most seen (or un-seen) in the diary entries of young ladies who read Wuthering Heights at a young age and never quite recovered.
Shakespeare
on difficult women
There is in William Shakespeare (1564–1616), much to be found, one modern critic said even to have claimed him as “the noblest women’s rightist of them all”. There may be something in this and Shakespeare created some memorably defiant women who asserted themselves in ways we don’t, erroneously or not, associate with the social mores of his age but, while some flourish, not all go unpunished for their transgressive behavior, although some didn’t need to be that difficult to be punished; few who try to map proto-feminism onto Shakespeare mention Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew; circa 1590) who apparently suffered her fate just for being a funny, fierce man-hater. Seemingly, at least sometimes in Shakespeare, the more muliebrious the better.
He certainly didn’t stick to the defined
role-models of his time, Helena (All's
Well That Ends Well; circa 1600), although she spends most of her time
moping about in anguish at the indifference of a man she wants, was a talented doctor
who delicately repairs the king's anal fistula.
So, in Shakespeare, there’s sometimes ambivalence. Juliet (Romeo & Juliet; circa 1595) got equal
billing with Romeo and while they’re both equally vital to the plot, Juliet,
while head over heels in love, at least remains a bit more grounded than the poetic
Romeo, a bit of an emo who likes talking about the moon. Romantic she may be but it’s Juliet to whom
the bard gave the long soliloquy about how much she lusts for sex with her
lover-to-be and there’s no sense she’s demonized for having normal womanly,
human longings.
Lady Macbeth (The Tragedie
of Macbeth; 1606) draws actresses like few other characters of the stage; Shakespeare’s
most fierce female, it’s not hard to see the attraction. Lady Macbeth is childless, probably less a
statement of proto-feminism or a rejection of societal expectations than the
bard constructing her as one noted more for manipulation than muliebrity and
just so the audience gets it, there’s her monologue (Act 1, scene 5) imploring
the spirits to “Stop up the access and
passage to remorse” (gender dysmorphia and commitment issues) and “Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk
for gall” (less succorance; more bile).
Without these womanly distractions, Lady Macbeth knows she’ll have the
strength herself to murder King Duncan even if her husband does not. Though it is Macbeth who murders Duncan, it
was the wife who put the blade in his hand and in the end, Shakespeare punishes
her too.
Although both survive a shipwreck, Viola (Twelfth Night; circa 1601) and her twin brother Sebastian each
believe the other dead and, once ashore, everyone thinks she is her brother and
her brother is her. Making the best of a
bad situation Viola, in an act of feminist temerity, anticipates changes in the
nature of female workforce participation (which won’t be seen for centuries) by,
rather than enduring the misery of domestic servitude, dresses as a boy and goes
to work for the Duke of Orsino (with whom she falls in love). That’s where it gets complicated because the
duke sends Viola to court the Countess Olivia on his behalf but Olivia falls
for Viola and, with the twin Sebastian having shown up, a flood of mistaken
identity ensues, and, after a few shenanigans, Sebastian and Olivia wed. Viola then reveals she really is a girl and
marries the duke. If Shakespeare hadn’t
had something else in mind, he might have called Twelfth Night, All’s well
that ends well.
Although Cleopatra (The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra; circa 1607) was another of Shakespeare’s women who ended up dead, while she lived she was quite something, a woman with her own bank account who ruled a nation. Complex, strong and vulnerable, she’s another one actresses like to play, her tragedy in death offering a bit more scope that Portia’s triumph in victory. Cleopatra explored Mediterranean sexual realpolitik too, toying with an Antony who is just one of the many men she outsmarts; no stereotypes of subservience there. Still, things do end badly for her, even if in her noble death she denies Caesar Octavius one more triumph, his primacy assured is by the play’s extraordinary death-toll and, with no political foes left standing, he sails for Rome to be crowned Emperor.
Portia (The Merchant of Venice; circa 1597) seems
at first an improbable feminist model, the first scene one in which the heiress
watches potential suitors sit the tests devised by her father to find one worthy
of her hand in marriage. But the
patriarchy is no match for Portia who twists the tests to ensure the winner is
her preferred beau, one who would never otherwise have attracted her father’s
approval; Portia is smart and tough. She
undermines gender-stereotyping and the patriarchy beyond the family too, cross-dressing
to appear in court at a time when women weren’t permitted to be counsel. For feminist anti-Semites too there’s a
strong role-model, Portia’s legal sophistry rescuing good Christian Antonio from
the grim fate demanded by the Jewish money-lender.
After being exiled, strong-willed Rosalind (As You Like It ;circa 1599) adopts the disguises of the male shepherd Ganymede and goes to live in the Arcadian forest of Ardenne. There, inter alia, she becomes a sort of life-coach, focused on teaching men to be more progressive in their attitudes towards women; not exactly making them metrosexuals but certainly less late-medieval. It works for her too for the previously uncouth Orlando learns better how to woo her and they wed in the happy group marriage at play’s end and in being taught by Rosalind to get in touch with his female side, Orlando takes part is what is probably Shakespeare’s most overt deconstruction of gender roles. There is however an undercurrent of class awareness in the allocation of happiness. Of the four couples, it’s the peasant pair, Phoebe & Silvius, who end up married even though his love for her remains surely unrequited; Shakespeare may have felt his clever women of the better classes deserved happiness more than peasant shepherdesses. Structurally it’s interesting too for in As You Like It, it’s Rosalind who delivers the play’s epilogue, a thing Shakespeare traditionally reserved for a man and that may be Rosalind’s most post-modern transgression.
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