The Decameron

Almost every story in The Decameron features love and sex. With characters frequently engaging in sexual acts, their honor and their respectability are key issues. The characters accept that they and others will seek affairs and that they will be falling in and out of love. However, they must do so in a manner which is congruent with the contemporary religious and societal expectations. Affairs are to be kept secret, wives and husbands are to be tricked, and—above all else—a person must preserve their honor, at least in the eyes of those around them. As such, the stories feature examples of men and women who destroy their lives and marriages in pursuit of love, and yet who strive above all else to ensure that their social peers believe them to be honorable people anyway. Love, sex, and honor are so entwined that to be in love is to feel a yearning for sex, while to crave sex is to fear a threat to personal honor. Characters find themselves in a tricky social situation, in which they must navigate their own personal feelings and desires alongside the expectations of honor and virtue which society places upon them.

The Decameron is 100 stories told by people who exist in a similar social

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