women, but their own conversation would be improved by their efforts to please their female audience. In the late seventeenth century a similar, but not identical, code of conduct became influential in England, politeness, which also viewed the ability to converse in French, the universal language of European courts at the time, as an important skill. Once again women were expected to play a crucial role, but concerns were now expressed that overexposure to female conversation would make men effeminate…
Words 1934 - Pages 8
