Why Katherine of Aragon Wasn’t Lying
The argument around what happened on Katherine of Aragon and Prince Arthur’s wedding night ended up shaping the religious future of the United Kingdom. However, Henry VIII’s decision to separate England from the Roman Catholic Church was in vain, for Katherine was not lying when she said that she had not slept with Prince Arthur. First, let’s just get it out there that this whole idea of virginity is a misogynist social construct. We should not put so much time into caring about women’s sex lives -- it’s objectifying and feeds into the patriarchy. We need to stop shaming women for when, how, or how often they have sex. We don’t do that to men!* Ok, onto the reasons.
Arguments against Katherine being truthful include:
In the end, there’s no way that we can know what happened that night. The only two people that know for sure what happened have been dead for almost 500 years. The question we should be asking is why do we care? Shaming this woman for her sex life shouldn’t have been so influential to British history, and honestly shouldn’t have mattered at all.* *Yes I recognize that this comes across as hypocritical because this article is also discussing this event. But the goal of this article isn’t to shame Katherine, it is to defend her. I’m sorry if it came across as shaming -- please let me know if it did :) Resources for your Research:
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the authorHello there! I'm Gemma, and I love women's history! archive
May 2021
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