"She is only a young woman who did not want to become a nun. The world is full of them."
I don't remember where I first heard of this book, but it was a good gamble on an author I hadn't read before. This is my kind of historical fiction--a completely fictional story steeped in history.
The idea behind the book is told best by its brief introduction:
"By the second half of the sixteenth century, the price of wedding dowries had risen so sharply within Catholic Europe that most noble families could not afford to marry off more than one daughter. The remaining young women were dispatched--for a much lesser price--to convents. Historians estimate that in the great towns and city-states of Italy, up to half of all noblewomen became nuns. Not all of them went willingly..."
The story was engaging, the history heartbreaking, the way some of the characters adapted to or fought against their fate inspiring. We've all heard the stories, true or not, of disgraced young women being forced into becoming nuns while their illegitimate children were sent to orphanages and such. But I had never known or considered that such large groups of women were forced into convents.
I was swept up by the story, despairing when the heroine despaired and cheering when she found some little bits of joy or respite. It made me pause and think about the countless real women whose lives were bought and sold by their fathers and husbands. A woman might have been sent to a convent simply because she had a sister who was prettier or more cunning or older. Though often, the convent might have been a safer and possibly happier fate.
How happy I am to be able to choose my own path in life, even if I merely stumble along it.
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