The Decameron, Day 2

            A few of the stories and the women in them reminded me of other women we’ve read about, in that they kind of take charge of themselves a little bit and decide to do what they want, even if in these stories it’s just for sex. In the first story from the third day and the tenth story from the fifth day, both the nuns and the wife decide to break their vows—their vows to God and marriage vows—just because they want to. In the Odyssey, we can see Penelope trying her best to stand her ground and keep her decisions her own, and in Genesis, Rebekah schemes for her sons and controls that situation. The wife whose husband caught her hiding her lover tells him off; she points out to him that he won’t even sleep with her so she took it upon herself to fix that. Like Rebekah, she knows what she wants, so she went and got it, and the husband ended up looking foolish after being told off by his wife. The nuns, too, decide to put aside their vows of chastity to all sleep with Masetto. Although it was his plan to get all of them to sleep with him, and his plan worked, in the end they all got what they wanted. The women apparently lived guilt-free lives in the convent with this one guy, and he got to sleep with all of them and didn’t have to worry about any of the children that came out of that at all. Like in many other stories we’ve read, the women have some say, for some of the time and may not appear to be in charge, but then sometimes things have a way of working out in their favor in the end.