?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
Hotman, Antoine (1525-1596) Traicté de la Dissolution du Mariage par l'Impuissance & Froideur de l'Homme ou de la Femme.
Paris: Par Mamert Patisson, chez Rob. Estienne, 1581.
First edition, octavo, woodcut device to title, author's gift inscription to title, "Hotamanus Author D[ono] D[edit]," dated 1583, inscription cropped obscuring donee's name; bound in full parchment, final blank present, 6 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.
"In France the attack on the wife's right to have her marriage annulled on the basis of her husband's impotence was yet another sign of the increased distaste with which the reputable regarded manifestations of female sexual agency. In the 16th century Antoine Hotman argued that as impotence was the only grounds for divorce, men were forced to prove themselves in public like brutes. [...] Critics claimed that such contests were inherently unfair to men. For a woman to even launch a suit was outrageous inasmuch as the mere suggestion that a man was inadequate was a slander." (Quoted from Angus McLaren's Impotence: A Cultural History, University of Chicago Press, 2008.)
