The Truth Of Honor In The Heptameron By Marguerite De Navarre

The Truth Of Honor

Honor is a concept that has a great deal to do with entitlement and is decided based on the actions or qualities of a person. There are three main types of honor that are recognized in society; family, men, and women and in The Heptameron, Marguerite de Navarre portrays each of the three types of honor throughout her stories. However, there are often many complications that follow honor. It seems to lie with what can truly be classified and understood as an honorable deed or trait, and who is it that determines this. Another issue that one may find is that it is also complicated to be able to view one form of honor in the presence of another due to certain views clashing with one another. The Heptameron’s twelfth story …show more content…
The Heptameron was written in a time period where one did not often view the two as equals. One was always held to a higher standard than the other. It was because of this that women had such a little voice to hold them up on. As stated previously, if a woman were to refuse a man, it was a great dishonor to him. When a woman did this, she was either protecting her virtue – which was held sacred at this time – or protecting her integrity in that she did not want to have any relations of this kind. At one point, the Duke says, “But, as you know, I am extremely fond of you, and if I had a wife or a daughter who was in a position, as it were, to save your life, I would certainly let her serve you, rather than see you die in torment” (158). It is made quite clear that regardless of the state it will leave the woman in, their greatest honor would be to ‘serve’ a man. The Duke offers the women in his life to another man as though they were objects and not human beings. The importance of this quote is to show the reader that while both men and women’s honor does, in fact, exist; they cannot be present at the same time. This conflict between honors has not been resolved over the years, unfortunately. Men and women have different notions on what establishes their honor and it is because of these two different views that they cannot find an agreement. In the quote above, the Duke is leading into his request of his “other half” doing this small deed of asking his sister if she would sleep with his friend. The Duke of Medici becomes relentless in his attempts to get his friend to agree, and when he does not he goes on to say that if that is his choice then he will find another way to get what he wants. Throughout this story, this woman has been referred to as