The Pound of Flesh Contract

Where did power come from?

When someone obeyed your orders and did as you said, power came into being.

A mother told her child to wash their hands before meals and after using the toilet, and the child obeyed. That was her power. But when she asked her husband to come home on time and he did not do as she said, or responded passively, she lost that power.

Marriage under divine authority was permitted not to satisfy desire, but to restrain, suppress, and kill it—to drive out the devil through the devil. In short, women were still devils. Even as wives and mothers, they remained symbols of sin.

The worship of Maria saved women. At the very least, being a great mother was worthy of praise. This compromise by Catholicism arose from the population shortages after the Black Death and the Crusades.

Besides that, they brought beautiful women home from filthy, chaotic, plague-ridden streets, dressed them in lovely clothes and magnificent jewelry, and from then on, they lived "happily ever after."

The most obvious feature of Renaissance architecture was its rejection of the Gothic architectural style of the Middle Ages. From then on, architects held the main decision-making power. They could choose the columns and the form of the building, while sculptors, decorators, painters, and glaziers merely carried out the architect's orders. No one had asked the mistress living in the house what style she wanted.

It was a house, but also a prison. The Mediterranean sun was too harsh and would darken the skin. Renaissance houses had many shaded galleries, which later evolved into arcades or enclosed corridors. Above the second floor were rows of windows, each corresponding to an arch below. Buildings arranged on all four sides enclosed a central courtyard, forming a hollow cube. This ensured