(4) Document 2	Francisco Barbaro, On Wifely Duties, The Earthly Republic ed. Benjamin Kohl and Ronald G. Witt, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press,1978)
	Francisco Barbaro lived from 1390 to 1454. He was a Venetian nobleman and humanist. He wrote On Wifely Duties as a wedding gift for Lorenzo de' Medics and his wife.
	For this reason the author Sophocles, who is certainly no worse than the Venetian I am discussing-and most men consider him better-has termed silence the most outstanding ornament of women Therefore, women should believe they have achieved glory of eloquence if they will honor themselves with the outstanding ornament of silence.
	But we require that wives be perpetually silent whenever there is an opportunity for frivolity, dishonesty, and impudence When addressed, wives should reply very modestly to familiar friends and return their greetings, and they should very briefly treat those matters that the time and place offer them. In this way they will always seem to be provoked into conversation rather than to provoke it. They should also take pains to be praised for the dignified brevity of their speech rather than for its glittering prolixity. When a certain young man saw the noble woman Theano stretch her arm out of her mantle that had been drawn back, he said to his companions: "How handsome is her arm." To this she replied: "It is not a public one." It is proper, however, that not only arms but indeed also the speech of women never be made public, for the speech of a noble woman can be no less dangerous than the nakedness of her limbs.