Sexual Deprivation In Baroque Europe

After thousands of years of arranged marriages and sex for procreation, the world finally met courtly wooing in France during the middle ages. Men had long portrayed women as sexual objects in paintings to stroke their egos, but it seems as though Baroque Europe was new to the idea of women being actually interested in sex. So confused by the idea, once confronted with the phenomenon they referred to it as an illness known as “furor uterinus”, and “women who were ‘afflicted’ with this ailment suffered from difficulty in breathing, rapid heart palpitations, which can cause women to faint, obstructions of the throat, swollen feet, and deathlike pallor.” Jan Steen’s painting entitled The Doctor’s Visit (fig. 1) captures some symptoms of furor uterinus in a way that also captures the religious society’s struggle with the ailment. To correctly analyze this piece, I will be analyzing the painting and the illness it portrays in accordance with the culture at the time,

In fact, during the second century, a Greek physician called Galen of Pergamon was one of the first to note the hysteria caused by sexual depravation in nuns . As the hysteria became more widespread, the church maintained the Biblical policy of no sex until marriage. According to Slatkin, Steen’s portrayal of the furor uterinus “confirm the collusion of the medical establishment with the dominant Protestant attitudes towards marriage”1. Essentially, the collusion meant that when a woman went to visit the doctor for the furor uterinus that they were told to marry immediately, making the concept of marriage good for women’s health. Slatkin states that in extreme cases “doctors were even authorized to arrange fulfillment by uniting lovers”1. One could even argue that Steen’s depictions of women in torment because of their sexual appetite actually caused more women to want to marry out of fear rather than pursue a career in the