Love letters and women in the 17th century

本文的目的在于论证17世纪法国宫廷爱情与荷兰公民爱情的显著差异。在宫廷爱情传统中，人们并不一定寻求婚姻；然而，在公民的爱情中，婚姻总是被寻求的。为了显示差异，荷兰风俗画、流行歌曲、谚语、徽章书、女孩道德书等许多材料都要进行检查。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，本文试图对这一背景有所了解。在荷兰，爱在17世纪的公民制度中有着重要的意义，这些制度是在新教的影响下形成或改革的。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.