In Sarah Dunant's novel Sacred Hearts, Serafina, the newest novice in Santa Caterina, rages against her fate, incarcerated by her family, forever punished for her "crime," trapped and desperate. And for many young women without marriage prospects, those who had sinned against society's mores, the not quite mentally intact, the physically imperfect, and those whose families didn't have the funds or inclination to offer them a dowry, the nunnery was in fact where they ended up, often times against their will. Even Shakespeare wrote "Get thee to a nunnery" in Hamlet, when Hamlet exhorts Ophelia to give up thoughts of marrying him. And although this was true for men, especially those who were not likely to inherit from their fathers, it was doubly true for women, sent off to a convent for a multitude of reasons that had nothing to do with religion. The church was long considered a profession rather than a calling and those who entered into service to it were not necessarily called there by God or because of their piety and spirituality.
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