Historic Characters Having Sex: a writer's dilemma

[hrj]

So as I've mentioned previously, I'm working on this lesbian historic romance short story about Duchess Margaret of Parma and the poet Laudomia Forteguerri. This isn't erotica, but I do postulate a sexual relationship between them that will be made unambiguous in the story, although not described in explicit language.

Margaret of Parma was fourteen years old when she married Alessandro de' Medici. The marriage contract included an agreement that he wouldn't try to consummate the marriage for the first six months. It is unclear whether he ever did as the six months were up just around the time he was assassinated. He may well have, though in my story, he never quite got around to it.

Margaret was married again at age sixteen to Ottavio Farnese who was a year younger than her. Based on various correspondence and the date of her first (and only) pregnancy, it appears this marriage was not consummated for 5-6 years (i.e., when Margaret was perhaps 21 and Ottavio 20).

But here's the dilemma. The obvious, rational, and reasonable date on which my characters Margaret and Laudomia begin their sexual relationship falls between those two marriages, when Margaret is 16 and Laudomia is 23. From a modern standpoint, this counts as an adult having sex with a minor. From a historic standpoint, Margaret was counted as being quite solidly of an age suitable for marriage and sex. If I were writing a historic biography and recorded that the 26-year-old Alessandro de' Medici had sex with his 15-year-old bride, that would be a statement of probable historic fact. If I write a fictitious scene in which a 16-year-old Margaret has sex with a woman of 23….

I can dodge the question somewhat by simply avoiding any specific mention of her age at the time, though it's hard to avoid having enough context that readers could calculate it if they cared to. And, as I said above, we're not talking about descriptions that go beyond kissing and cuddling (though with the implication of more). What do people think about fiction in historic settings where the acceptable age of sexual maturity was lower than modern laws allow for?

Comments

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Developmentally and without referencing modern sex panic, sixteen year olds are very much like eighteen year olds, and we consider eitheen ear olds old enough to have sex with someone in their earlyu twenties.

I think the whole thing can be dealt with by having Laudomia acknowledge that Margaret is young but also reflect that she has been married and is in fact a widow.

Aren't widows kind of expected to be pretty sexual people in a lot of cultures anyway?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it would make sense for Laudomia to comment on her being young -- after all, it's likely Laudomia herself was married at 16 or 17. (She had her first child at 18.)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Exactly. "She is but a bud, and already a widow: and I too, was such a bud, not so long ago..."

But now that I write it out it looks creepier than leaving it alone altogether. Oh well!

What I was trying to get to was a thing where they put each other on an equal footing, over the issue of marriage, etc.

I do think it is interesting that Margaret got a marriage contract stipulating that she shouldn't have sex until she was older. I assume that had more to do with the fact that much younger mothers are more likely to die in childbirth.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

The delayed consummation may have been part of a compromise that was an alternative to delaying the wedding further. The Medicis were pretty anxious about Charles V changing his mind (again) about going forward with the marriage at all. Margaret had been spending the few years before that in Naples solidly still in Hapsburg hands. The Medicis were worried enough about "a slip twixt the cup and the lip" that they pushed for a civil contract to be finalized there in Naples rather than waiting on the formal religious ceremony in Florence with all the possible delays that would entail. Fourteen was still young for all the duties of marriage even by Italian and imperial family standards and the negotiations had been going on (and blowing hot and cold) since she was six.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Because I have a vague mind I thought for a moment you were talking about my favorite Charles and I was wondering why I hadn't read about this before on my own-- but I was wrong. My Charles is Charles the Fourth, not the Fifth.

Anyway, all of that is understandable. The Medicis wanted the marriage so badly because of her dowry, or her connections?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Not the dowry, as far as I can tell. Pretty much every major Italian family at that time was playing off France and the Holy Roman Empire (which at that point included Spain and the Netherlands) against each other. Both of Margaret's marriages were to families that wanted a solid foot in the HRE camp and, not entirely coincidentally, both involved families that included the current pope at the time of the marriage.

This is all stuff that I've picked up just in doing the research for this story. I haven't really paid that much detailed attention to either Italy or the 16th century previously.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

From a modern standpoint, this counts as an adult having sex with a minor.

Not in the UK, it doesn't - sixteen is the age of consent. (Weirdly, if you take photos of your sixteen-year-old lover, that counts as child pornography; but it's perfectly legal to go to bed with them.)

I think the same is more or less true throughout Europe; in this as in other matters, the US is out of step. Dunno if that addresses your quandary at all, but it's a data point at least.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Laws are strange.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sixteen is the age of consent here too, as far as I recall. And 23 is only seven years older - seven years isn't all that much of a gap, even at the age of sixteen.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, especially when you've already been married and widowed! I'm probably being over-cautious just because there's "deviant sexuality" involved. You know, the whole "recruiting the children" panic thing.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Any sixteen year old will tell you that sixteen isn't a child. :p

But sympathies on the caution.

[zeborah]

16 is the age of consent in New Zealand too, fwiw.

[kareina.livejournal.com]

I think it also depends on which state. While I never looked up the law myself, I was told years ago, by a sixteen year old there, who was totally ok with have sex with people in their early twenties, that the age of consent in New Mexico was 13.

Also I think that readers of historical novels generally accept the fact that rules were different in different eras. I know I wouldn't have even thought about it so long as both characters were obviously old enough to have experienced physical desire.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit more concerned about the editors' position than readers. (A different anthology call that I was reading recently emphasized "no underage sex" in the no-nos, so it occurred to me to wonder about historic stories in general. The specific anthology call that inspired this story says stories should be "true to their times, and true to themselves, not modern people inserted into the past".

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Even allowing for earlier puberty today, 15-16 seems like a perfectly reasonable age for people to start having sex. (Them as wants, and with the caveat that there's a world of difference between teenagers having sex with each other and teenagers being groomed for sex by adults.)

But I'd want to see some of the teenage awkwardness in it: shall I/shan't I, how the fuck is this supposed to work, help, what do I do now?, people _do_ this? ugh! and so on. In fiction, there seems to be far too much of either the woman being the completely blank slate who is being 'taught' things by an experienced [male] lover, or a couple starts having sex and suddenly she knows everything and becomes an eager participant.

The reality of kissing in the dark when suddenly, nose! is something I've not seen described in fiction.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Since I won't be dwelling on the mechanics of the interaction in the first place, this is less of an issue for this particular story. And it's being told from a viewpoint a decade and a half later, so the narrator is less likely to be dwelling on any awkwardness as opposed to an idyllic memory.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

desperance beat me to it, but I have checked and the age of consent is 16 in the UK for heterosexuals, homosexuals and lesbians. Therefore, as he says, no Brits would think there was anything wrong with the scene at all, even if they didn't bother to remember that Things Were Different In the Past.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Not that I don't expect my social circles to be more historically informed and so less twitchy about this...

Heterosexual Historic Romances

[scotica.livejournal.com]

Even in current heterosexual Regency historical romances, there still appear characters who are 16-17 falling in love and getting married (and so having sex). These days the primary couple do tend to be at least 18 (often older), but younger sexually active characters still happen.

In medieval and renaissance set heterosexual historical romances, teenage heroines are still pretty normal, as far as I can tell (I don't read as many set in that era as Regency era), especially in the more historically inclined ones (as opposed to the modern people in historical settings ones).

So I think you're good to go, as long as the historical context is there --if the readers know she's a widow, that should cover it!

Re: Heterosexual Historic Romances

[hrj.livejournal.com]

That's the impression I'm getting -- at least from sensible people.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Juliett of "Romeo and Juliett" was 14. I really don't see the issue. You'd have more problem doing this in a modern context, but historically, what's the big deal?

-- Robin

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

If you read 19th C women's novels, they are all about older men and younger women. The idea of there being a magically change when a woman hits 18 that makes it OK for a much older person to have sex with her is such a modern byproduct that I would find it very easy to ignore when reading a historically set story.