The Castrato Sacrifice: Was it Justified? Page: 13
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convents were most likely usually not centered in religious beliefs. These factors paved the way
for a common disparaging of all sexual activity, which helped lay good groundwork for
castration.
The ideas of castration and celibacy were vastly different in those centuries. While today
celibacy seems rather an abstract concept, reserved simply for the most devoted of the religious
ilk, in the 17th and 18th centuries it was quite a common life choice. It must be examined not
from our modern point of view, but from the feeling of Baroque period Italy. Even the most
basic concept of sexual life was completely different then. While more modern day assumption
tends to center around individual fulfillment, sexual expression and freedom, sexuality in that era
was almost seen as a burden. The celibate life was the ideal, for many reasons. Between the
years of 1600 and 1750, celibacy was on the rise. Although the Church officially did not
publicly condone castration, it supported the idea of celibacy. Baroque theologians promoted the
idea that our bodies do not belong to us, but that we are simply caretakers (Rosselli 1992). The
belief was one of self sacrifice for the greater good. As previously discussed, even a child's
future was determined not on the basis of what he himself was interested in or would like to
achieve, but on the basis of what would best serve the family unit as a whole. In many cases,
this pointed to a life of celibacy as the most viable solution. With the fragile economic
situations, fueled by revolts and general unrest, a child with a stable, safe, respectable career and
a life that was guaranteed not to produce more offspring to feed must have been an attractive
idea. In A History of Celibacy, Elizabeth Abbott, speaking of eunuchs and castrati, emphatically
states that: "They or their parents neutralized poverty by trading their sexuality for
opportunity..." (Abbott 1999).13
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Sowle, Jennifer. The Castrato Sacrifice: Was it Justified?, thesis, August 2006; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc5343/m1/16/?rotate=270: accessed May 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .