Recreation in the Renaissance

Varieties of Pastimes 95
In general, gender and the forms of recreation which were conceived
as specifically appropriate for men or women, or those involving people
of either sex participating (separately or together), is, after social hierarchy,
another decisive factor to be considered. Traditional gender roles
were reinforced by clearly distinguished practices in leisure as well as
work, and a wealth of advice books made sure that such cultural identities
were observed and transmitted from one generation to the next.
Burton’s prescriptions for melancholic women include ‘curious Needleworkes,
Cut-workes, spinning, bone-lace, and many pretty devises of
their owne making, to adorne their houses, Cushions, Carpets, Chaires,
Stooles, confections, conserves, distillations, etc. which they shew to
strangers’. Rather than a prescription, it is a descriptive list of what
women actually do (the opening clause, in fact, reads ‘Now for women
insteed of laborious studies, they have . . .’). Nevertheless, the observation
of actual practices serves here the scope of therapeutic advice. The
physician’s analysis of women’s occupations continues with a kaleidoscope
of details, which add further typical components to the gender
cliché, and, bordering on caricature, seem to describe a cultural world
totally other than the male observer’s: ‘This they have to busie themselves
about, houshold offices, etc. neate gardens full of exotick, versicoloure,
diversly varied, sweet smelling flowres, and plants in all kindes,
which they are most ambitious to get, curious to preserve and keepe,
proud to possesse, and much many times bragge of. Their merry meetings
and frequent visitations, mutuall invitations in good townes, I voluntary
omit, which are so much in use, gossipping among the meaner
sort, etc. old folkes have their beades.’ Burton goes as far as suggesting
hints of a religious anthropology: ‘to say so many Paternosters, Avemaries,
Creedes’ – though his own religious consciousness requires him to add
‘if it were not prophane and superstitious’. 15
We found the same gender differentiation confirmed and reinforced
both in medical literature and in the visual imagery of Pirro Ligorio (see
above, Chapter 3). Physical strength and military training are among
the most obvious components and objectives of male leisure culture,
grace and household competence those generally attached to women.
When the physician Joseph Duchesne (see once more Chapter 3) discussed
hunting, he quoted a saying according to which, while hunting
is the most appropriate exercise for men, dance is the equivalent for
women. Men would deny themselves any other pleasure (Lat. voluptas,
Fr. volupté), but not that which they experience in hunting. The simile
is truncated: its implicit completion is that dance, proverbially, is the
one pleasure which women would never renounce. 16