Love letters and women in the 17th century

本文旨在论证17世纪法国的宫廷之爱与荷兰的公民之爱之间的显著差异。在宫廷爱情传统中，人们不一定寻求婚姻；然而，在公民爱情中，人们总是寻求婚姻。为了展示荷兰风俗画的不同之处，荷兰风俗画、流行歌曲、谚语、徽章书籍和女孩道德书等许多材料都将被审查。许多评论家在很大程度上忽视了荷兰风俗画背后的文化背景。然而，这篇论文试图阐明这一背景。在荷兰，爱情在17世纪新教影响下形成或改革的公民制度中具有重要意义。爱情被认为是婚姻的必要条件，为此，(上层)中产阶级的年轻女孩受到教育和控制。

The purpose of this papers is to demonstrate a significant difference between the courtly love in France and the civic love in Holland in the 17th century. In the courtly love tradition people did not necessarily seek for marriage ; in the civic love, however, marriage was always sought for. In order to show the difference, many materials such as Dutch genre paintings, popular songs, proverbs, emblem books and moral books for girls are to be examined.Many critics have largely ignored the cultural context behind the Dutch genre paintings. This paper, however, attempts to throw a light on the context. In Holland, love had an important meaning in the civic institutions of the 17th century that were formed or reformed under the influence of the protestantism. Love was considered to be a necessary condition for marriage and for this purpose young girls in the (upper-) middle class were educated and controlled.