Livy's Rape Of Lucretia Response

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Rape of Lucretia Response
The concept of gender undergoes multiple changes throughout history. Livy’s Rape of Lucretia presents the idea that gender is a keeper of strong values. The assumption about gender is that socially in Roman Society, woman are expected to be noble and pure by practicing chastity outside of marriage. When this idea is violated, acceptance, honor, purity, and the credibility of monarchy are tainted in a way that can lead to turmoil in a society. Early in the passage, Rape of Lucretia first gives an indication of the idea of being chaste outside of marriage is noble. The example is the observance of Lucretia behaving in a way that is not like other women and continuing performing her home duties(57). An example of women not doing their duties would be the daughter in laws of the king(57). They decided to go out and have from instead of caring for the home(57).This shows that sociable acceptance of gender is not violated in any way because of the display of obedience and loyalty by Lucretia. By doing this, Lucretia is not actively putting herself in a position to practice …show more content…

In Rape of Lucretia, Lucretia integrity is at risk, due to her being forced into unchastity by Sextus Tarquinius(58). During this time, having one unclean act carried out by a woman, could attach the reputation of performing such acts to her, and she herself can be used to represent shame. In Rape of Lucretia, Lucretia states that no women will use her as a dishonored example(58). She then commits suicide by stabbing herself (58). Here, Lucretia is trying to erase the corruption that her name may carry in Roman society. This will result in the Roman society not being able to use her as an example of a woman being unchaste. This in turn will keep the expectations of women, which is to not be unchaste with anyone besides her

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