In this tale, the relationship between men and women

has a huge gap. Men dominated the women inside

their marriage. With the statute that favor men,
women were deliberately pushed into difficult
situation. The law that was forcibly imposed in the city
of Prato which stated that if a woman is caught selling
her body for pleasure or if a husband caught his wife
committing adultery, they will be burned alive as a
punishment. Thus, the men grew its power since the
law was set that control their wives.
Madonna Filippa, a woman who came from a
respectable family, gentle, a beauty to behold and
articulate in her reasoning, faced the threat of either
being punished because of the adultery charged by
her husband. But instead of crying in despair,
humiliation and fear, she bravely defended herself
and did not hesitate to express her sentiment about
the unfairness of the law.
Madonna Filippa did not hesitate in refuting the
imposed law, even though it was clearly stated in their
city’s law about the harsh punishment of prostitution
and adultery, she still displayed an incredible sense of
reasoning as she defended her stance about the
unfairness of the said statute.
Although these two mentioned crimes were indeed
immoral, it must be still with great consideration
depending on the situation of the people that the
punishment should be administered. Don’t get me
wrong, class. I am extremely against to these acts,
 and I condemn those who commit these. However, in
this case, the law is not equally applied to both men
and women. The statute was biased towards women,
and give men the power to take full charge in their
marriages.
 What are the power relationships between men and
women (or characters assuming male/female roles)?
 How are male and female roles defined?
 What constitutes masculinity and femininity?
 How do characters embody these traits?
 Do characters take on traits from opposite genders?
How so? How does this change others’ reactions to
them?
 What does the work reveal about the operations
(economically, politically, socially, or psychologically)
of patriarchy?
 What does the work imply about the possibilities of
sisterhood as a mode of resisting patriarchy?
 What does the work say about women's creativity?
 What does the history of the work's reception by the
public and by the critics tell us about the operation of
patriarchy?
 What role does the work play in terms of women's
literary history and literary tradition? (Tyson