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Migration, Diasporas
and Citizenship

Series Editors
Robin Cohen
Department of International Development
University of Oxford
Oxford, United Kingdom

Zig Layton-Henry
Department of Politics and International Studies
University of Warwick
Kenilworth, United Kingdom
Editorial Board: Rainer Baubock, European University Institute, Italy;
James F. Hollifield, Southern Methodist University, USA; Daniele Joly,
University of Warwick, UK; Jan Rath, University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands.

The Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship series covers three important


aspects of the migration process: firstly, the determinants, dynamics and
characteristics of international migration. Secondly, the continuing attach-
ment of many contemporary migrants to their places of origin, signified by
the word ‘diaspora’, and thirdly the attempt, by contrast, to belong and
gain acceptance in places of settlement, signified by the word ‘citizenship’.
The series publishes work that shows engagement with and a lively appre-
ciation of the wider social and political issues that are influenced by
international migration. This series develops from our Migraton,
Minorities and Citizenship series, which published leading figures in the
field including Steven Vertovec, Daniele Joly, Adrian Favell, John Rex,
Ewa Morawska and Jan Rath.

More information about this series at


http://www.springer.com/series/14044
Ingrid Palmary

Gender, Sexuality
and Migration
in South Africa
Governing Morality
Ingrid Palmary
African Centre for Migration & Society
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa

Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship


ISBN 978-3-319-40732-6 ISBN 978-3-319-40733-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40733-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016956662

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Pattern adapted from an Indian cotton print produced in the 19th century

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature


The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Brendon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book has been a long time in the writing and even longer in the
making. Since it reflects on ten years’ worth of work there is a long list of
people to thank. In particular, the amazing people who make up the
African Centre for Migration & Society have stimulated this work. When
I first went to work at the Centre, Loren Landau made it the kind of place
to work that created intellectual curiosity and space to develop even the
most bizarre of ideas. Most of the work described in this volume has
involved a number of colleagues and graduate students in one way or
another and they have provided me with constant theoretical, political and
ethical challenges. The role that students are playing in transforming
South Africa has never been clearer than it is today. In particular, I
thank the following people: Julie Middleton, Thea De Gruchy, Duduzile
Ndlovu, Stanford Mahati, Ronica Zuzu, Tino Jeera Jo Vearey, Zaheera
Jinnah, Brandon Hamber, Monica Kiwanuka, Dostin Lakika and Thabani
Sibanda who have talked with me on so many topics for so many years.
Our conversations have generated most of what is in this book and they
have always been undertaken with generosity and genuine intellectual
curiosity. It has been a privilege to work in an environment that is
supportive, creative and more than a little unorthodox.
Jane Callaghan, Lindsay O’Dell and Erica Burman offered me the
opportunity to present this work in earlier forms at conferences and
other events and I am grateful for this and their ongoing interest in my
work.
Jenny van de Wet did a wonderful job of producing an index at the last
minute for which I am grateful.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding for this work has come from varied sources and I would like to
acknowledge the financial contributions of HIVOS, Atlantic
Philanthropies and the National Research Foundation and the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation.
An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared in the POWS-R as Palmary, I.
(2016). Global feminisms in a time of migration: Gender sexuality and
asylum in South Africa. Psychology of Women Section-Review, 18(1), 13–26.
It is reworked in this book with the kind permission of British
Psychological Society (Psychology of Women Section).
I would also like to thank the International Organization for Migration
and Times Media for allowing me to reproduce the images in Chapters 4
and 5.
Finally I would like to thank Brendon, Tyler and Connor whose endless
questions inspire my curiosity.
CONTENTS

1 Governing Morality: Placing Gender and Sexuality in


Migration 1

2 Migration Journeys 19

3 The Normalization of Violence: Gender, Sexuality and


Asylum 31

4 Trafficking: New Scandals of Slavery Amidst Old Regimes


of Power 53

5 Violence in the Name of Peace: Attacks on Foreign Nationals


in South Africa 79

6 Violence, Victimization and the Making of the Nation 101

References 119

Index 127

ix
CHAPTER 1

Governing Morality: Placing Gender


and Sexuality in Migration

Abstract In this chapter I reflect on the long history of the management


of gender, sexuality and mobility in the making of the South African
nation, tracing examples of how they intersect from early colonization
through apartheid to the present day. Through revisiting this theoretical
terrain I show how mobility, sexuality and gender are deeply intertwined
and, moreover, the making of the state is closely connected to the manage-
ment of the seemingly private sphere. To understand how the project of
statecraft is accomplished, we have to unpack the ways in which intimate
relationships are connected to broad political projects. Finally, I argue that
the making of the nation in South Africa has always been a global process
with strong investments from the global North.

Keywords Nation  Feminism  Nationalism  Statecraft  Global North 


Gender  Sexuality  Colonization

This book considers the intersections of gender, sexuality and migration in the
South African context. Migration in South Africa has become something to be
studied, debated and contested by human rights activists, lawyers, humanitar-
ian workers, government departments and international bodies and conven-
tions. In many ways this is a new debate for South Africa but it is shaped by
global concerns and re-enacted in localized ways that are embedded in South

© The Author(s) 2016 1


I. Palmary, Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa, Migration,
Diasporas and Citizenship, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40733-3_1
2 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

African histories of colonization and apartheid. Much of this debate has been
prescribed by very particular, and often taken for granted, sets of assumptions
about what and who migrants are, what gender is, what sexualities are and
their interconnectedness. In this book, I want to take a reflexive step back to
pay attention to these sets of assumptions and reflect on how it is that gender,
sexuality and migration come together in the South African context and with
what consequences.
Reflecting on South Africa does not mean that this is a book about
South Africa. Indeed one of the most important topics elaborated in this
book is the ways in which global and local imperatives are negotiated
constantly as South Africa has re-entered the global economic and political
sphere. Similarly, in talking of the West, the global North or of Africa, I do
not suggest that this reflects a contained and conceptually meaningful
geographical space but rather an idea. An idea imbued with notions of
development, aid, humanitarianism and political interconnectedness and
difference. To paraphrase Veena Das (1996), the nation exists at the level
of icon and it is this iconic representation of a nation that is at once
disconnected from place whilst simultaneously being saturated with inter-
connected symbolic meanings. As Mbembé (2001) notes:

Africa still constitutes one of the metaphors through which the West represents
the origin of its own norms, develops a self-image, and integrates this image
into the set of signifiers asserting what it supposes to be its identity. (p. 2)

Thus, this book engages centrally with the interconnected but unequal
global relationships that constitute present day preoccupations with
migration without imagining that one can ever speak about Africa or the
West as a given. So whilst this book is a series of reflections on the ways
that gender, sexuality and migration have intersected in South Africa since
democracy in 1994, and the new social and moral orders that have been
produced though this intersection, it is equally a book about the place that
South Africa has taken up and continues to negotiate in an increasingly
global, and globally constrained discourse around gender, sexuality and
migration. This means that this is not a book about gendered movement
or even about women’s movement. Nor is it about the abuses faced by
sexual minorities (although no doubt these are reflected upon). It is a
book about the ways in which gendered notions, which may or may not
map onto different bodies function in conversations on migration and the
global consequences thereof.
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 3

Migration in South Africa is often represented as something that began


with the end of apartheid. However, many South African writers have
reminded us that the figure of the migrant has been a significant one for
the making of the South African nation (see Van Onselen 2001). For
example, the early work of Bozzoli and Nkotsoe (1991) on women’s
migration to the cities points to how South Africa has been founded on
physical segregation and the regulation of the movement of “undesirable”
groups particularly to and within urban areas (see also Van Onselen 2001).
The regulation of mobility was equally central to the apartheid project
where the rhetoric of two nations (black and white) was used to justify the
restriction of black South Africans to the independent homelands and
townships. The system of pass laws that regulated the movement of
black South Africans was central to the apartheid project. It was also
heavily gendered and differential laws were enacted for men (defined as
labourers) and women (defined dependents). This has meant that, with
the end of apartheid, South Africa was ripe for an approach to migration
management that was focussed on the restriction of the movement of the
poor. As Landau (2012) has noted, the democratic South Africa inherited
a “deep suspicion of those that move – particularly to urban areas – [that]
continues to infuse political and popular discourse” (p. 5). I would add
that this suspicion of those who move was an approach to thinking about
mobility that had already gained international credibility when South
Africa achieved independence and found consensus within South African
preoccupations with regulating the poor.
In addition, there has been useful history of attention to how gender,
particularly in times of conflict has shaped nation building both in South
Africa and internationally. Since the early 1980s feminist writers have
considered how the nation is produced and invented in ways that are
thoroughly gendered (see for example McClintock 2013; Yuval-Davis
1993). For example, Yuval-Davis et al. (1989) as early as 1989, articulated
how the prevailing literature on the construction and formation of the
nation had failed to account for how practices of nation building are
rooted in representations of family, home, reproduction and the masculine
protection of the “womenandchildren” (see also Burman 2008a). From
this work stemmed an increasing attention to how nationalism functions as
a system of cultural representation (see Dowler 1998) whereby people
come to identify with an imagined community (Hobsbawm and Ranger
2012). The ways in which women have been forgotten, selectively remem-
bered and represented within nationalist rhetoric became an important set
4 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

of conceptual resources for unpacking and making visible the myth of the
nation – one that has been developed in useful ways in the anti-colonial
struggles that have characterized that past 50 years on the African con-
tinent by (Meintjes et al. 2001; Turshen et al. 1998). These literatures on
gender and nation have provided one of the richest intellectual traditions
precisely for the way in which they have been written by authors from
postcolonial contexts and from the Empire and read together can help us
to understand the ways in which global colonial relationships persist even
as we see an increasing “methodological nationalism” that sees us confin-
ing our research to particular country contexts understanding anything
that crosses a border as “comparative research” (Wimmer and Glick
Schiller 2002). However, these interconnections remain underdeveloped
and addressing this is a significant aim of this book.
For the purposes of this book, it is useful to extend one perhaps less clearly
articulated aspect of this existing work to think about where we find our-
selves today in contemporary South Africa. Within this area of work has been
consideration of how bodies are appropriated in the imagining of a national
project and how they become the objects on which the desire for nationalism
is (often brutally and sometimes willingly) inscribed. For example, Ryan and
Ward (2004) note the significance of forcibly cutting women’s hair in
Northern Ireland as an act of humiliation. Also from Northern Ireland
Smyth (1992) has documented the political tensions over the debate on
abortion and the symbolism that abortion holds in the nationalist project.
Equally, in South Africa we have seen differential approaches to abortion for
black and white women with heavily criminalization of abortion for white
women existing alongside the forced abortion and sterilization of many
black women (Bradford 1991). Perhaps the most extreme manifestation of
this would be the prevalence of rape in times of war as an act of violence that
symbolically is not just perpetrated against individual women but against
women as representatives of the boundary of a group and women’s sexuality
a symbol of the group’s very existence. From this work we can consider that
the violation of women’s bodies, creates what Das (1996) refers to as “a
future memory . . . that the women as territory had already been claimed and
occupied by other men” (p. 85).
Extending these debates we can see how the regulation of sex is central
to the making of a nation. Whether it is through legislation like the
Immorality Act (1957) in South Africa which criminalized sex between
people classified as belonging to different race groups, or insisting on the
patrilineal classification of mixed Hutu and Tutsi children in Rwanda (see
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 5

Palmary 2006), the nation is made through the regulation of sex. From
the regulation of sexual relationships, stems a broader set of gendered
relationships and norms that frame and reinscribe national identity. What
is perhaps more important for this book is the way that, through these
sexual regulations, national identity becomes naturalized. It is the every-
day acceptance of what are in fact a highly constrained set of practices
around sex, childbirth and identity that make national identity appear
timeless and natural. We only have to think of an example from the
South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission where Victor
Mthembu, in his defence against killing a 9-month old baby in the course
of the Boibatong massacre, drew on a proverb which translates as “a snake
gives birth to another snake” (see Palmary 2006 for more). Similarly,
Coleman (2002) notes how the anti-Tutsi propaganda in Rwanda repre-
sented Tutsi women in sexual relationships with United Nations soldiers
and declared Hutus who had sex with or married Tutsi’s to be traitors of the
nation. For example, of the widely promoted Hutu Ten Commandments
published in a December issue of the newspaper Kangura, (Coleman 2002)
regulated marriage and sexual relationships across ethnic divisions. They
stated that:

Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, wherever she is, works for the
interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any
Hutu who: marries a Tutsi woman; befriends a Tutsi woman; employs a
Tutsi woman as a secretary or concubine; Every Hutu should know that our
Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman,
wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and
more honest? Hutu woman, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands,
brothers and sons back to reason; The Rwandese Armed Forces should be
exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October [1990] war has taught us a
lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi. (cited in Coleman
2002, pp. 748–9)

The interrelationship between violence, nation and family is stark in this


example. So much so that Mamdani (2014), in his book on the Rwandan
genocide, was able to declare that in Rwanda everyone is either Hutu or
Tutsi there are no Hutsi’s. In these and other examples, the regulation of
sexual relationships, marriage and birth function to reproduce the bound-
aries of a nation defined by race, space or ethnicity. It is the presumed
naturalness of sexuality understood to be biological that allows it to render
6 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

one’s nationality a “fact” that is uncontested. As Mtembu inferred in his


testimony to the South African Truth and reconciliation Commission, a
snake will, quite clearly, give birth to another snake thus drawing on and
reproducing taken for granted notions of the transmission of values and
beliefs through blood and family; biology and culture. This casting of
birth as a biological fact is what draws the boundaries of, in this example,
an ethic identity. In these examples we see at work Butlers claim at work
when she says that race and sex are vectors of power that deploy each other
for their own articulation (Butler 2011).
However, this is a narrative that goes beyond bodies as the property of
individuals. Das (2007) reminds us of how the magnification of the image of
the nation draws energy from the image of magnified sexuality to explain
how these ideas of sexuality and nation function at the level of icon –
irrespective of their material realities. To draw on a South African example,
the centrality of the image of violated white women under apartheid had cur-
rency regardless of whether white women were indeed violated and with
what frequency. Van Onselen (2001) notes in his work on the early forma-
tion of Johannesburg that there were frequent moral panics in this time over
white women claiming sexual assault by black men. In this way, the discourse
of violation allows us to recast the nation as a masculine project of protec-
tion. Critiquing a reference to womanhood as a sacred Victorian institution,
Das claims that “when the massacre of women is reported as the destruction
of an institution, we know that the sacred image of womanhood has outlived
the story of women’s lives” (Das 2007, p. 83). Thus, for Grosz (1994 albeit
writing in a very different context):

[F]ar from being an inert, passive, noncultural and ahistorical term, the body
may be seen as the crucial term, the site of contestation, in a series of
economic, political, sexual, and intellectual struggles. (p. 19)

And so we can see then how the body and the violence against it speaks.
A far cry from the South African angst over so-called gratuitous violence
with its implication of meaningless violence without reason (a topic I return
to in the following chapters), I would argue that violence always has mean-
ing. Inflicting pain, how it is done and for what ends tells a story cast in the
history of the national project. But we should not think of this violence
only operating through war (or public violence as in the necklacing – see
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 7

Chapter 5). For example, Mehta (2000) shows how circumcision functions
to distinguish Muslims from Hindus in ways that equally reflects the history
of partition. For him:

Circumcision . . . occur[s] within a frame where festivities, blood, pain and


exhibitionism accompany the trauma wittingly inflicted by the group to
maintain its cohesion. (p. 87)

However, as much as this violence solidifies group membership, it also


threatens intimate relationships creating a context where all belonging is
placed under suspicion and bodies are scrutinized for appropriate markers
of belonging.
Even less well-documented than the regulation of sexuality is perhaps
the ways in which this maps onto place (for notable exceptions see
Ahmed 2013). As McClintock et al. (1997) argue, home and accompa-
nied notions of the loss of home is a symbol of modernity in the Western
world and, at least in part, drives a current preoccupation with human
mobility. However home takes on multiple and contested meanings; as
country, property or sense of belonging. The contestations of home as a
place, and the ways in which claims to place are made, equally evoke
notions of birth-right, indigeneity and rootedness that are based on
family, marriage and sexual relationships. Notions of home, so frequently
evoked in nationalist rhetoric, are shot through with racialized, sexua-
lized and more generally gendered contestations. For example, the mid-
dle-class home as a place of leisure and consumption stands in stark
contrast to the representation of poor homes as places of violence,
neglect and dysfunction, a topic that will be explored in this book. This
very brief contrast of different kinds of homes already shows that home is
a normative idea associated less with the everyday practices and places
that make up homes and more with prescriptions about how homes
should be. Clearly home as a place and home as an idea are entangled
but not synonymous. The idea of home allows for an analysis that moves
away from a focus on different categories of people such as children,
women or sexual minorities and allows us to think about how the idea of
home instead participates in the production of these seemingly intract-
able categories. It goes without saying that home is a politicized concept
and unpacking the idea of home makes visible the politicized nature of
8 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

seemingly natural categories such as the child the adult, men and women
and their mutual construction. In this sense home regulates – it shapes
and constrains sexual relationships, adult-child relationships and rela-
tionships between men and women. It equally creates normative expec-
tations of what the members of a home should and can do, foreclosing
alternatives.
But home and its associated spacial metaphors also connects these see-
mingly intimate spaces with broader political projects such as the invention
of the homeland (or perhaps even more insidiously the motherland). This is
equally a notion of home that regulates; in, for example, the ways in which
home country is used to deny movement of certain groups, to forcibly send
others home as well as to assign or revoke rights and entitlements. The idea
of home as a place of family life is complicit in the making of the nation even
as it is constantly represented as outside of the scope of state intervention.
Indeed the regulation of family relationships is central to the making of the
homeland and is violently regulated for its potential to disrupt the national
project. Thus for Said (1993) geography is the imperial methodology.
However this is not limited to periods of colonization and remains as true
now as when it was written, as evidenced by the current deaths of migrants
attempting to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe. Clearly, the idea
of home is saturated with affect. Whether as a place of love, care and
nurturing or as a place of anger violence and oppression, home is a powerful
metaphor precisely because of its emotional pull. If to feel at home is to
belong then the idea of home is surely one rooted in protection and love.
Affect is perhaps the most artificially depoliticized of constructs (see Ahmed
2013). These themes and their connections to nation building emerge
centrally in the chapters to follow.

GENDER, SEX AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL PROJECT(S)


South Africa has undergone massive political and social changes since the
end of apartheid and this has heralded in a new set of norms, laws and
social and political preoccupations. Nowhere is this more evident than in
the fact that one of the earliest attempts at reworking South African social
norms after apartheid was a moral regeneration project headed by
President Jacob Zuma and aimed at combatting what was seen as moral
degeneration as well as supporting “traditional and cultural pro-
grammes”.1 As with other efforts to rewrite a narrative of what South
Africa is (of which the TRC must be the most far reaching) there is a very
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 9

real sense of South Africa changing or needing change, however ambigu-


ously or conflictually defined. However amidst the numerous efforts at
change there is also much that remains the same and recent events of crass
racism and ongoing violence suggest that familiar struggles remain even if
they take new forms.
Given the massive social change that the country has gone through, there
remains merit in thinking about new manifestations of the production of the
nation in light of the transition to democracy as well as current South African
concerns about migration. Whilst a detailed historical reflection on the place
of migration in South Africa’s nation-building project is beyond the scope of
this book, I want to touch on a few examples from different historical times
in order to illustrate the point. These are times in South African history that
have at their core, a preoccupation with and regulation of the sexual practices
of those at the (always contested) boundaries of the nation. They are also
times where the nation was very overtly and geographically reconfigured and
the stakes for inclusion or exclusion ran high. Each of these moments has
been where the centrality of sexual regulation becomes a preoccupation –
one that is driven by the need to rethink what constitutes the nation and
which bodies belong. Indeed, as I will elaborate, it is precisely the sense that
the nation is under threat that creates a set of conditions conducive to
repressive and violent regulation of sexuality.
A first illustration goes back to early colonial investigations into the
sexuality of black (South) Africans. Phillips (2002) points to the enormous
emphasis on the regulation of sex in the colonies by the colonial authorities –
mostly focussed on prostitution and trafficking (which were often conflated).
He notes how the National Vigilance Association (a group set up to prevent
the trafficking of “white” women) moved to the colonies to launch commit-
tees against trafficking, promoting a discourse on sexuality that was rooted in
European concerns about sex work whilst nevertheless being shaped and re-
worked by supporters and critics in the colonies. Phillips describes how the
committees established by the National Vigilance Campaign were encour-
aged by the fact that “other nations followed the noble repentance of
England” (Phillips 2002, p. 344). This was accomplished through a dis-
course on health and morality which functioned to legitimate the project of
producing the nation, defined at this moment as the Empire. Van Onselen’s
(2001) work on the emergence of Johannesburg from a diggers camp to a
fully-fledged working class mining town shows how sex work was a profes-
sion for in excess of 10,000 women and prostitutes from all over Southern
Africa were, over time, drawn to the goldfields. When in 1887 Johannesburg
10 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

was granted powers of local government, one of the first responses was the
punishment of prostitution, something that was further attempted by the
British and the Afrikaner governments in successive periods of time. Van
Onselen thus refers to a “barrage of legislation over a ten year period” (2001,
p. 112) attempting to regulate the vices of the newly formed Johannesburg.
He notes that the Contagious Diseases Act passed in 1885 was modelled on
its British counterpart but implemented shortly before the British Act was
repealed, suggesting high levels of enthusiasm for this kind of regulation in
the colonies. In addition, his work documents an increasing movement of
women between Europe and Southern Africa that followed and was shaped
by economic developments in both countries. Amidst the periodic calls for
the abolishment of prostitution was debate, noted by Van Onselen (2001),
on whether and to what extent Johannesburg should follow the legal route
of Britain. This is a topic that will recur throughout this book. However,
what is significant for this work is how legislation in Johannesburg developed
through a complex engagement with colonial powers. The situation
described by Van Onselen (2001) is not unlike how, in Uganda, early
reproductive and parenting programmes functioned to create a sense of
national identification and pride rooted in the “strength” (defined once
more through a blurring of morality and health) of the Ugandan family
(Summers 1991). Early manifestations of this colonial preoccupation with
sexuality can be seen in Van Heyningen’s (1984) analysis of how South
Africa became a settler society at least in part because of a concern that white
sex workers were working in the Cape Colony and selling sex to black men.
The spacial separation of men and women was thought to produce promis-
cuity that could only be solved by a return to family values. Thus the decision
to bring families to the Cape Colony was one rooted in the concern that sex
across race groups would undermine the project of colonization and having
families would curtail men’s sexually inappropriate behaviour. Clearly as
Stoler (1995) shows in her critique and re-reading of Foucault’s History of
Sexuality “discourses on sexuality, like other cultural, political or economic
assertions, cannot be charted in Europe alone” (p. 7). Rather, the colonies
were a shadow against which the Empire could be built and Western
morality defined and it is precisely this interconnectedness that I am con-
cerned with in this book.
If we consider, as a second example, the way that apartheid was
implemented, it created as central pillars of its legal and moral frame-
work the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act. Significantly,
these Acts perpetuated the myth that South Africa is a country of two
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 11

nations – black and white. Prohibitions on sex between people of


different race groups and their energetic policing set up an environ-
ment of sex as something to be regulated, contained and punished in
the interests of the nation. Again this was accomplished by a similar
discourse around disease and morality, read through the concerns of
the present (Foucault 1978) in ways that resulted in boundaries of the
nation shifting to define black South Africans as outside of and a threat
to the nation. Hyslop (1995) provides just one analysis of this in his
description of a poster urging support for the “Purified National Party”
which demanded protection for “white” women (referred to as the
“Hope of South Africa”) from “Mixed Marriages which the United
Party will not Prohibit by Law” (Cited in Hyslop 1995, p. 57). Thus
the reassertion of national boundaries, defined in this example as the
Afrikaner nation and, at others as the white nation remained a key
outcome of the management of sexuality whilst the naturalness of both
continued to be insisted upon through a familial discourse of sex and
reproduction.
What is perhaps most important is that each of these periods represents
a moment of perceived threat to the nation; A time where who falls inside
or outside its (physical and symbolic) borders is challenged and what can
be claimed as a result is seen to be under threat. The regulation of sexuality
is no coincidence but rather is essential if the notion of a blood tie to a
nation is to be upheld.
What I want to suggest is that South Africa is currently in another key
period of re-making the nation after independence in 1994. During apartheid
it was the predatory nature of black men and the reproductive excesses of black
women that were to be contained. Now we see a shift to the cross border
migrant as the body associated with stigma, threat and disease in a threat to the
new post-apartheid nation. These discursive shifts map predictably onto the
changing boundaries of the nation state. The new group set at the margins of
the nation state threatening to puncture its protective shield is the migrant.

MORAL REGENERATION: REMAKING SOUTH AFRICA


AFTER INDEPENDENCE

Once more, in contemporary South Africa, the project of redefining


society after apartheid has been framed as a moral one. From the early
moral regeneration campaigns to the contemporary focus on “ethical
leadership” popular discourse seems caught in a moral panic in which
12 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

the regulation of gender and sexuality continues to figure centrally. In this


book, I look at three ways in which migration, gender and sexuality come
together in contemporary South Africa. These are: the way that gender-
based persecution has been conceptualized and assessed in the asylum
system, the recent attention to issues of human trafficking and the violence
against foreigners in South Africa. These seemingly disparate areas of
preoccupation, when read together, allow us to consider contemporary
ways that gender, sexuality and migration converge in the making of new
moral orders. In this book I want to look at several examples of how
sexuality and gender have figured in the South African post-apartheid
discourse on migration in order to pose the question: What has migration,
gender and sexuality become, by what means and with what effects. Thus
my question is less to show the ways in which female or gender non-
conforming migrants experience migration, but rather to ask, how have
different groups – activists, policy makers, perpetrators of xenophobic
violence and so on – drawn connections between gender, sexuality and
migration and with what consequences. What forms of knowledge has the
contemporary framing of these constructs allowed for and what have they
foreclosed.
This book is a collation of some of the research that has been under-
taken over the past 10 years under a collaborative research programme
entitled Gender, Violence and Displacement at the African Centre for
Migration & Society. Whilst the details of specific pieces of research are
documented in Chapter 2, there have been a number of overarching
questions that have animated this programme of work. In particular:
What forms of government have been developed to respond to the pre-
carious lives of migrants? Who are the actors in these systems of govern-
ance (be they social workers, international organizations, NGOs, the state
or researchers) and how have these differing groups come to know and
intervene with migrants?
If this is the notion of governance that I am working from then it is one
that can only see discourse as being produced in multiple places and in
contested ways. Although Chapters 3, 4 and 5 lean heavily on empirical
research the arguments draw on a number of observations and experiences
that I have gleaned from working in this field for nearly 20 years.
Following Foucault (1978), I acknowledge that knowledge produced in
multiple places taking non-linear and complex tangents. Similarly, whilst
research is profiled in this book I recognize that there are multiple “ways
of knowing” that are valid and help to make meaning. Thus writing a book
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 13

inevitably involves a degree of infidelity to the complexity of a problem.


Nevertheless I have drawn on broad experiences and research whilst
profiling three case studies more clearly in order to map the contemporary
links between gender, sexuality and migration and what they can tell us
about South Africa’s complex navigation of postcoloniality, international
political regimes and local practices of compassion and violence. In short,
the moral order that is evoked when we consider South Africa after apart-
heid though the lens of migration.
The programme of work that this book draws on began with a focus on
how gender – at that time defined broadly and somewhat problematically –
functioned to shape what we know about the migrant and how we know
migrants. In this book I read sexuality and gender together – not because I
feel that they are the same or because, as is assumed in so many policy fields,
that sexuality is one aspect of gender. Rather the contrasting ways in which
sexuality and gender have been attended to is my focus. I will argue that read
together, they provide an important way of conceptualizing how morality
operates in the management of migration from the asylum system, to the
deportation of and violence against foreigners. Morality both legitimates and
closes down certain migration practices and it is these effects that I focus on.
As Foucault points out:

Sexuality is not the most intractable element in power relations, but rather
one of those endowed with the greatest instrumentality: useful for the
greatest number of manoeuvres and capable of serving as a point of support,
as a linchpin, for the most varied strategies. (Foucault 1978, p. 103)

Several authors have noted how after war, there is a common call to return
to traditional values and imagined pre-war life (Meintjes et al. 2001). This
often takes as its focus the regulation of family life. Moments of social
anxiety are frequently characterized by preoccupation with sexuality and
gender relations. For Fahs et al. (2013) moral panics divert attention from
broader social problems. As she notes:

When the government bans images of coffins and body bags returning from
war and makes only half-hearted attempts at lessening poverty, blowjob
scandals and “slutty” teenagers become apt attention diverting replace-
ments. (pp. 4–5)
14 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Drawing from this, South Africa is in a moment of perceived crisis where


the promises of freedom have often not materialized, where inequality and
violence have continued to characterize society and where frustrations
(witnessed for example in the widespread and often violent service delivery
protests) are high. At moments like these “a mass hysterical forgetting and
silencing seems to occur” (Fahs et al. 2013, p. 7) where gender and
sexuality become preoccupations of society but in ways that eclipse the
very real gendered inequalities in favour of the spectacular and the exotic.
In elaborating these points in the chapters that follow I will also draw out
the question of what the range of technologies for governing migrants
might be; how are they practiced and reproduced in different settings in
South Africa, who some of the actors (such as social scientists, organized
thugs and international NGOs) are and how these groups consolidate
their work on the notion of law and morality that are typical of our
political time. In particular, I focus on how new yet contested moral
orders are constructed in South Africa in the context of global notions
of rights, law and ethics.

SOME OCCLUSIONS
This book offers an inevitably partial view of a vast topic. My perspective on
the topic is centrally an urban one viewed from the symbolic position of the
city of Johannesburg. Johannesburg is the stuff of fantasy. As Mahati (2015)
notes, children from Zimbabwe refer to the whole of South Africa as Joni;
to be in South Africa is to be in Johannesburg. It is a place of notorious
brutality and violence but also a place of opportunity and possibility – a city
build on gold. In this vein Mpe (2001) refers to Hillbrow (an inner city
suburb of Johannesburg) as a place of “milk honey and bile”. It is a place
that travel guides warn visitors to avoid and yet it is a place to which
hundreds of people from all over the continent flock in order to “make it”.
Johannesburg is predictably a place where migration has a huge sym-
bolic meaning. From the early migrants who came to what was then a bare
patch of land and set up a tent town to mine gold to contemporary
movements of Zimbabweans, Congolese, Chinese, Bangladeshi’s and
Somalis, it remains a place of possibility (see also Palmary et al. 2015).
As Mbembe Nuttall et al. (2008) note:

Civil life appears as an inchoate mix of ruthlessness and kindness, cruelty and
tenderness, indifference and generosity. (pp. 6–7)
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 15

Its motto “a world class African city” shows its complex and contested
symbolism; at once making a claim to Africa and at the same reflecting
ambivalence as African – suggesting that being world class makes it unlike
other African cities. This is an identity that will be explored more deeply in
the pages to follow. Thus, the book, whilst making broader comments on
South African and global moral preoccupations with migration, necessarily
eclipse experiences that fall outside of the urban. At its most pragmatic,
this is justified because refugee reception centres and embassies in South
Africa are entirely located in urban areas (with the exception of the Musina
border post) making migration, through bureaucratic design an urban
concern. Nevertheless, the reflections in this book are coloured by my
position in Johannesburg. This is a problem in so far as rural life in South
Africa, is barely visible, seldom researched and often assumed to be known
and timeless.
The case studies included also represent three of an almost endless set
of possible illustrations. As such this work is necessarily a first step in
attending to gender, sexuality and migration from a context which is
seldom researched given the dominance of Northern Academia. No
doubt there are many other ways to weave meaning from the multitude
of places and contexts in which migration debates take place.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK


In Chapter 2, I provide a brief background to migration in South Africa.
In addition, I outline the methodologies that I used for each of the studies
found in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. All three of the studies have been ongoing in
different forms for almost a decade. For example, the first research that was
conducted on the asylum claims brought on the basis of sexual orienta-
tion, was conducted in 2007 and was updated and refocussed on sexual
orientation asylum claims in 2014/2015. Similarly the chapter dealing
with trafficking follows debates that began in earnest in 2008 but continue
today looking at the ways in which they have changed and been reformu-
lated. The chapter on violence against foreigners is based on two periods
of research, one undertaken in 2011 and one in 2015 following two
significant outbreaks of violence against foreigners. In each of these pro-
jects, the methodological focus is qualitative and designed to gain under-
standing of how different actors negotiate and take up different discourses
of gender sexuality and migration.
16 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

In Chapter 3, I look at asylum as a key system of protection for vulner-


able migrants. In focussing on how gender and sexuality have been taken up
in the asylum system, I trace, through an analysis of UN documents, a
discourse of increasing protection and the elimination of biases in the
asylum system. I then argue that this stands in direct contrast to actual
practices of asylum recognition globally which are increasingly focussed on
exclusion rather than inclusion. From this point of departure I analyse how
exclusion happens in the South African context. The key way in which this
takes place is through the requirement of excessive violence. By framing
violence as an ordinary part of the experiences of women and sexual
minorities, the standards of persecution are made excessively high.
Secondly, exclusion takes place through the ways in which a constrained
notion of identity is expected and required in asylum procedures. Finally
exclusion takes place through a form of migration management that I refer
to as “disordered regulation”. Through a range of subtle and often implicit
rules and practices most would be asylum seekers are unable to access the
asylum system. In this section I consider the informal ways that migration is
managed in South Africa including corruption, unwritten rules of engage-
ment, bureaucratic complexity and rumours among migrant groups. All of
these informal systems of control work to manage asylum applications in
ways that shape who can and cannot access the system.
This chapter concludes by connecting the asylum system to the broader
system of migration management in South Africa. In doing so I return to
the initial analysis of UN documents to trace how global concerns have
been taken up and reworked in the South African context. I argue that put
into the context of a broader system on migration control the asylum
system naturalizes place and nation as a form of identification and repre-
sents movement as only ever possible under the most extreme forms of
violence. I then show that the way certain kinds of violence are framed and
legitimated in the asylum system participates in the more oppressive forms
of migration control including extensive detention and deportation. It is
only because South Africa meets its international obligations in a global
context of restrictions on movement that these more overtly violent
systems of migration control can be justified.
In Chapter 4 I trace the paths of influence that led to the creation of the
South African Trafficking Act from the first demotion of South Africa in
the US Department of State Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Report through
to the 2010 FIFA football World Cup. I argue that the global influence
and concern for migration control has resulted in law that is at odds with
1 GOVERNING MORALITY: PLACING GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN MIGRATION 17

South African realities and, in ignoring significant forms of violence whilst


attending to others, new forms of entitlement and exclusion are created.
The focus of this chapter is therefore on how and why trafficking has come
to matter and which combination of role players, and socio-political con-
texts made South Africa a target for intervention and a receptive context
for counter trafficking debates.
I begin the chapter by looking at how the US trafficking in persons
report shaped the South African parliamentary debates on trafficking. I
then look at how research has been taken up in advocacy in ways that has
created trafficking as a problem of mobility and individualized persecu-
tion. Following on from this I analyse the representations of victims and
perpetrators and look at how in practice this creates constrained notions of
vulnerability that are at odds with patterns of movement in the South
African context. In this chapter, the themes of global and local connec-
tions in policy are most starkly drawn and elaborated. In addition the
notion of morality as a guiding force behind migration management is also
discussed. The ways in which these globalized moralities shape the practice
of statecraft is a key theoretical contribution of this chapter.
In Chapter 5 I focus on the extensive violence against foreigners that
has taken place in South Africa since 2005. The chapter predominantly
focusses on the views of those who have been perpetrators and organizers
of the violence. I explore three moral codes that the perpetrators of
violence against foreigners use to legitimate their actions. The first is,
law and criminality. Here I explore how perpetrators (in a seemingly
contradictory move) use notions of law (and migration as being a pre-
dominantly illegal action) to justify their violence against foreigners in
South Africa. Connected to this is a theme on rights and entitlements in
which I explore how notions of rights are used to justify nationally based
entitlements and the third is freedom and democracy. In elaborating these
themes I look at how the political transition that South Africa has under-
gone is used as a justification for excluding foreigners in the name of
realizing freedom. Each of these themes represents moral orders that are
deeply connected to South Africa’s political transition. In this chapter, we
see not just how nation building legitimates anti-foreigner sentiment but
more than this how the new language that was adopted of rights, law and
citizenship is being reworked as poor township residents claim a stake in
the new South African order.
In Chapter 6 I pull out the cross cutting themes from the preceding
empirical chapters. Firstly, returning to the literature outlined in the
18 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

introductory chapter, I revisit new forms of nation building that take place
through the reworking of gender, sexuality and migration. I reconsider
the new ways that old intersections of nation, gender and sexual regulation
work to construct the nation state and I retrace the new moral orders that
have been produced through the focus on migration in post-apartheid
South Africa.
In particular, I consider the ways that notions of victims, and legitimate
violence shape the moral framing of migration and establish new forms of
inclusion and exclusion. This shapes the nature and historical forms that
humanitarian responses have (and can) take in South Africa.
In addition, global and local influences are an important theme in each
of the chapters. This takes us beyond a simple reflection on how the North
influences the South to consider how global politics has been reconfigured
after African independence. The empirical chapters trace just some of these
spheres of influence and force us to rethink a simple binary between the
“West and the rest”.
Finally I consider how ideas of democracy and human rights have been
reworked in the South African context to create the conditions for exclu-
sion based on national identity. The popular imagination of South Africa’s
struggle has indeed meant that political freedom has become a system of
regulation.

NOTE
1. See www.mrm.org.za
CHAPTER 2

Migration Journeys

Abstract In this chapter, I very briefly introduce mobility in post-apart-


heid South Africa. I also outline the methodologies used for each of the
studies that Chapters 3–5 draw on. All three of the studies have been
ongoing in different forms for almost a decade. The different methods
used include ethnography, process tracing to understand global and local
policy actors, in-depth interviews, observations and document analysis.
Whilst data from these different research studies is presented in each of the
chapters, the focus of the book is focussed on the broader questions that
can be answered by these studies rather than their empirical details.

Keywords Migration  Apartheid  Ethnography  Process tracing  Key


informant interviews

In this chapter, I want to document briefly my journey to the study of


migration in order to give contextual and methodological background to
the case studies that follow. In 1998, after completing my graduate degree
in psychology, I was sent to Johannesburg to complete the required
internship at the Johannesburg General hospital (now Charlotte Maxeke
Hospital) and the Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital, two of the largest in
the Southern Hemisphere. This represented a transitional moment as I
was faced, through my early research, with the fascination of a city like

© The Author(s) 2016 19


I. Palmary, Gender, Sexuality and Migration in South Africa, Migration,
Diasporas and Citizenship, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40733-3_2
20 GENDER, SEXUALITY AND MIGRATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

Johannesburg as well as the stark implications of apartheid separate devel-


opment policies and how complicit certain forms of research were in
reproducing them.
Following this I joined the Centre for the Study of Violence and
Reconciliation (CSVR) where I conducted research on gender, race and
violence after apartheid and its connections to new systems of governance
that were being set up in urban centres across the country. At this time,
many at the CSVR were concerned with ideas of post-conflict reconciliation
and with building credible institutions such as police and local government
structures and I was deeply influenced by them. By 2001, issues of migra-
tion had come to occupy a small but significant space in the public dis-
course. The focus at this time was almost entirely on refugees and the mood
was generally sympathetic with an emphasis on the need for South Africans
to reciprocate the support that other African countries gave to exiled South
Africans during apartheid. In my work on post-conflict societies I began to
work on topics related to gender and trauma among refugee groups.
However, in time I became increasingly fascinated with how migrants,
most of who were from parts of Africa outside of South Africa, figured in
South African conceptualizations of race and the ways in which this was
constituted through gender (see Palmary 2006). I then began to research
women’s involvement in armed conflict in South Africa and the Democratic
Republic of Congo and their displacement experiences. From this work
developed my concern with the ways in which race and gender operate as
mutually defining constructs that shape notions of inclusion and exclusion –
a topic which I continue explore in this work.
From 2005 migration became a more central focus of study for me and
at that stage the Forced Migration Studies Centre (now African Centre for
Migration & Society) began to grow into an exciting academic environ-
ment. Over a 10-year period, a number of research collaborations have
shaped what this book has become. Before elaborating these, a brief
background to migration in South Africa is useful.

A BRIEF NOTE ON POST-APARTHEID MIGRATION


IN SOUTH AFRICA
As apartheid was drawing to an end in 1993, the South African coalition
government signed an agreement with the United Nations High Comissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) which indicated that South Africa was generally
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Title: Egalité des hommes et des femmes


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EGALITÉ
DES

HOMMES ET DES FEMMES.

A LA REYNE.

M. D C . XX II .
A LA REYNE.

adame,

Ceux qui s’aduiſerent de donner vn Soleil pour deuiſe au Roy voſtre


Pere, auec ce mot, Il n’a point d’Occident pour moy, firent plus qu’ils ne
penſoient: parce qu’en repreſentans ſa grandeur qui voit preſque touſiours ce Prince
des Aſtres ſur quelqu’vne de ſes terres, ſans interuale de nuict; ils rendirent la deuiſe
hereditaire en voſtre Majeſté, preſageans vos vertus, & de plus, la beatitude des
François ſous voſtre Auguſte preſence. C’eſt diſie chez voſtre Majeſté, Madame, que la
lumiere des vertus n’aura point d’Occident, ny cõſequemment l’heur & la felicité de
nos Peuples qu’elles eſclairerõt. Or comme vous eſtes en l’Orient de voſtre aage & de
vos vertus enſemble, Madame, daignez prendre courage d’arriuer en meſme point au
midy de luy & d’elles, ie dis de celles qui ne peuuent meurir que par temps & culture:
car il en eſt quelques vnes des plus recommendables, entre autres la Religion, la
charité vers les pauures, la chaſteté & l’amour coniugale, dont vous auez touché le
midy dés le matin. Mais certes il faut le courage requis à cet effort auſsi grand &
puiſſant que voſtre Royauté, pour grande & puiſſante qu’elle ſoit: les Roys eſtãt battus
de ce malheur, que la peſte infernale des flatteurs qui ſe gliſſent dans les Palais, leur
rend la vertu & la clair voyance ſa guide & ſa nourrice, d’vn accez infiniment plus
difficile qu’aux inferieurs. Ie ne ſcay qu’vn ſeur moyen à vous faire eſperer, d’atteindre
ces deux midys en meſme inſtant: c’eſt qu’il plaiſe à V. M. ſe ietter viuement ſur les
bons liures de prudence & de mœurs: car außi toſt qu’vn Prince s’eſt releué l’eſprit par
cet exercice, les flatteurs ſe trouuans les moins fins ne s’oſent plus iouër à luy. Et ne
peuuent communemẽt les Puiſſans & les Roys receuoir inſtruction opportune que des
mors: parce que les viuans eſtans partis en deux bandes, les foux & meſchans, c’eſt à
dire ces flateurs dont eſt question, ne ſçauent ny veulent bien dire pres d’eux; les
ſages & gens de bien peuuent & veulent, mais ils n’oſent. C’eſt en la vertu certes,
Madame, qu’il faut que les perſonnes de voſtre rang cherchent la vraye hauteſſe & la
Couronne des Couronnes: d’autant qu’ils ont puiſſance & non droit de violer les loix &
l’equité, & qu’ils trouuent autant de peril & plus de honte que les autres hommes à
faire ce coup. Außi nous apprend vn grand Roy luy meſme, que toute la gloire de la
fille du Roy eſt par dedans. Quelle eſt cependant ma ruſticité, tous autres abordent
leurs Princes & Roys en adorant & loüant, i’oſe aborder ma Reyne en preſchant?
Pardonnez neantmoins à mon zele, Madame, qui meurt d’enuie d’ouyr la France crier
ce mot, auec applaudiſſement, La lumiere n’a point d’Occident pour moy, par tout où
paſſera voſtre Majesté nouueau Soleil des vertus: & d’enuie encore de tirer d’elle, ainſi
que i’espere de ſes dignes commencemens, vne des plus fortes preuues du Traicté
que i’offre à ſes pieds, pour maintenir l’egalité des hommes & des femmes. Et non
ſeulement veu la grandeur vnique qui vous eſt acquiſe par naiſſance & par mariage,
vous ſeruirez de miroir au ſexe & de ſuiet d’emulation aux hommes encore, en
l’eſtẽduë de l’Vniuers, ſi vous vous esleuez au prix & merite que ie vo9 propoſe: mais
außi toſt, Madame, que vous aurez pris reſolution de vouloir luyre de ce bel & precieux
eſclat, on croira que tout le meſme ſexe eſclaire en la ſplendeur de vos rayons. Ie ſuis
de voſtre Maieſté

MADAME,
Tres-humble & Tres-obeiſſante
ſeruante & ſubjecte.

Gournay.
EGALITÉ DES HOMMES ET
DES FEMMES.

a pluſpart de ceux qui prennẽt la cauſe, des femmes, contre cette


orgueilleuſe preferance que les hommes s’attribuent, leur rendent le
change entier: r’enuoyans la preferance vers elles. Moy qui fuys toutes
extremitez, ie me contente de les eſgaler aux hommes: la nature
s’oppoſant pour ce regard autant à la ſuperiorité qu’à l’inferiorité. Que diſ-
je, il ne ſuffit pas à quelques gens de leur preferer le ſexe maſculin, s’ils ne les
confinoient encores d’vn arreſt irrefragable & neceſſaire à la quenoüille, ouy meſme à
la quenouille ſeule. Mais ce qui les peut conſoler contre ce meſpris, c’eſt qu’il ne ſe
faict que par ceux d’entre les hommes auſquels elles voudroient moins reſſembler:
perſonnes à donner vray ſemblance aux reproches qu’on pourroit voſmir ſur le ſexe
feminin, s’ils en eſtoient, & qui ſentent en leur cœur ne ſe pouuoir recommãder que
par le credit de l’autre. D’autant qu’ils ont ouy trompetter par les ruës, que les femmes
manquent de dignité, manquent auſſi de ſuffiſance, voire du temperament & des
organes pour arriuer à cette-cy, leur eloquence triomphe à preſcher ces maximes: &
tant plus opulemment, de ce que, dignité, ſuffiſance, organes & temperament ſont
beaux mots: n’ayans pas appris d’autre part, que la premiere qualité d’vn mal
habill’homme, c’eſt de cautionner les choſes ſoubs la foy populaire & par ouyr dire.
Voyez tels eſprits comparer ces deux ſexes: la plus haute ſuffiſance à leur aduis où les
femmes puiſſent arriuer, c’eſt de reſſembler le commun des hommes: autant eſlongnez
d’imaginer, qu’vne grande femme ſe peuſt dire grand homme, le ſexe chãgé, que de
conſentir qu’vn homme ſe peuſt eſleuer à l’eſtage d’vn Dieu. Gens plus braues
qu’Hercules vrayement, qui ne desfit que douze monſtres en douze combats; tandis
que d’vne ſeule parolle ils desfont la moitié du Monde. Qui croira cependant, que ceux
qui ſe ueulent eſleuer & fortifier de la foibleſſe d’autruy, ſe puiſſent eſleuer ou fortifier de
leur propre force? Et le bon eſt, qu’ils penſent eſtre quittes de leur effronterie à
vilipender ce ſexe, vſants d’vne effronterie pareille à ſe loüer & ſe dorer eux meſmes, ie
dis par fois en particulier comme en general, voire à quelque tort que ce ſoit: comme ſi
la verité de leur vãterie receuoit meſure & qualité de ſon impudence. Et Dieu ſçait ſi ie
congnois de ces ioyeux vanteurs, & dont les vanteries ſont tantoſt paſſées en
prouerbe, entre les plus eſchauffez au meſpris des femmes. Mais quoy, s’ils prennent
droict d’eſtre galans & ſuffiſans hommes, de ce qu’ils ſe declarent tels cõme par Edict;
pourquoy n’abeſtiront ils les femmes par le contrepied d’vn autre Edict? Et ſi ie iuge
bien, ſoit de la dignité, ſoit de la capacité des dames, ie ne pretends pas à cette heure
de le prouuer par raiſons, puiſque les opiniaſtres les pouroient debattre, ny par
exemples, d’autant qu’ils ſont trop cõmuns; ains ſeulement par l’aucthorité de Dieu
meſme, des arcſboutans de ſon Egliſe & de ces grands hommes qui ont ſeruy de
lumiere à l’Vniuers. Rangeons ces glorieux teſmoins en teſte, & reſeruons Dieu, puis
les Saincts Peres de ſon Egliſe, au fonds, comme le treſor.
Platon à qui nul n’a debattu le tiltre de diuin, & conſequemment Socrates ſon
interprete & Protecole en ſes Eſcripts; (s’il n’eſt là meſme celuy de Socrates, ſon plus
diuin Precepteur) leur aſſignent meſmes droicts, facultez & functions, en leurs
Republiques & par tout ailleurs. Les maintiennent, en outre, auoir ſurpaſſé maintefois
tous les hommes de leur Patrie: comme en effect elles ont inuenté partie des plus
beaux arts, ont excellé, voire enſeigné cathedralement & ſouuerainement ſur tous les
hommes en toutes ſortes de perfections & vertus, dans les plus fameuſes villes
antiques entre autres Alexandrie, premiere de l’Empire apres Rome. Dont il Hypathia.
eſt arriué que ces deux Philoſophes, miracles de Nature, ont creu dõner plus
de luſtre à des diſcours de grand poix, s’ils les prononçoient en leurs liures par la
bouche de Diotime & d’Aſpaſie: Diotime que ce dernier ne craint point d’appeller ſa
maiſtreſſe & Preceptrice, en quelques vnes des plus hautes ſciences, luy Precepteur &
maiſtre du genre humain. Ce que Theodoret releue ſi volontiers en l’Oraiſon de la Foy,
ce me ſemble; qu’il paroiſt bien que l’opinion fauorable au ſexe luy eſtoit fort plauſible.
Apres tous ces teſmoignages de Socrates, ſur le faict des dames; on void aſſez que s’il
lache quelque mot au Sympoſe de Xenophon contre leur prudence, à comparaiſon de
celle des hommes, il les regarde ſelon l’ignorance & l’inexperience où elles ſont
nourries, ou bien au pis aller en general, laiſſant lieu frequent & ſpatieux aux
exceptions: à quoy les deuiſeurs dont eſt queſtion ne s’entendent point.
Que ſi les dames arriuẽt moins ſouuẽt que les hõmes, aux degrez d’excellence,
c’eſt merueille que le deffaut de bonne inſtructiõ, voire l’affluẽce de la mauuaiſe
expreſſe & profeſſoire ne face pis, les gardant d’y pouuoir arriuer du tout. Se trouue til
plus de difference des hommes à elles que d’elles à elles meſmes, ſelon l’inſtitution
qu’elles ont prinſe, ſelon qu’elles ſont eſleuées en ville ou village, ou ſelon les Nations?
Et pourquoy leur inſtitution ou nourriture aux affaires & Lettres à l’egal des hommes,
ne rempliroit elle ce vuide, qui paroiſt ordinairement entre les teſtes des meſmes
hommes & les leurs: puis que la nourriture eſt de telle importance qu’vn de ſes
membres ſeulement, c’eſt à dire le commerce du monde, abondant aux Françoiſes &
aux Angloiſes, & manquant aux Italiennes, celles cy ſont de gros en gros de ſi loing
ſurpaſſées par celles là? Ie dis de gros en gros, car en detail les dames d’Italie
triumphent par fois: & nous en auons tiré deux Reynes à la prudence deſquelles la
France a trop d’obligation. Pourquoy vrayment la nourriture ne frapperoit elle ce coup,
de remplir la diſtance qui ſe void entre les entendemens des hommes & des femmes;
veu qu’en cet exemple icy le moins ſurmonte le plus, par l’aſſiſtance d’vne ſeule de ſes
parcelles, ie dis ce cõmerce & conuerſatiõ: l’air des Italiẽnes eſtant plus ſubtil & propre
à ſubtilizer les eſprits, comme il paroiſt en ceux de leurs hommes, confrontez
communement contre ceux là des François & des Anglois? Plutarque au Traicté des
vertueux faicts des femmes maintient; que la vertu de l’homme & de la femme eſt
meſme choſe. Seneque d’autre part publie aux Conſolations; qu’il faut croire que la
Nature n’a point traicté les dames ingratement, ou reſtrainct & racourcy leurs vertus &
leurs eſprits, plus que les vertus & les eſprits des hõmes: mais qu’elle les a doüées de
pareille vigueur & de pareille faculté à toute choſe honeſte & loüable. Voyons ce qu’en
iuge apres ces deux, le tiers chef du Triũuirat de la ſageſſe humaine & morale en ſes
Eſſais. Il luy ſemble, dit il, & ſi ne ſçait pourquoy, qu’il ſe trouue rarement des femmes
dignes de commander aux hommes. N’eſt ce pas les mettre en particulier à l’egale
contrebalance des hommes, & confeſſer, que s’il ne les y met en general il craint
d’auoir tort: bien qu’il peuſt excuſer ſa reſtrinction, ſur la pauure & diſgraciée nourriture
de ce ſexe. N’oubliant pas au reſte d’alleguer & releuer en autre lieu de ſon meſme
liure, cette authorité que Platon leur depart en ſa Republique: & qu’Anthiſtenes nioit
toute difference au talent & en la vertu des deux ſexes. Quant au Philoſophe Ariſtote,
puiſque remuant Ciel & terre, il n’a point contredit en gros, que ie ſcache, l’opinion qui
fauoriſe les dames, il l’a confirmée: s’en rapportant, sans doubte, aux ſentences de
ſon pere & grand pere ſpirituels, Socrates & Platõ, comme à choſe conſtante & fixe
ſoubs le credit de tels perſonnages: par la bouche deſquels il faut aduoüer que le
genre humain tout entier, & la raiſon meſme, ont prononcé leur arreſt. Eſt il beſoing
Eraſme Epiſt: & Colloq. d’alleguer infinis autres anciens & modernes de nom illuſtre, ou
Politia: Epiſt. Agripa parmy ces derniers, Eraſme, Politien, Agripa, ny cet honneſte &
Precel: du ſexe pertinent Precepteur des courtizans: outre tant de fameux
feminin Courtizan. Poëtes ſi contrepoinctez tous enſemble aux meſpriſeurs du ſexe
feminin, & ſi partiſans de ſes aduantages aptitude & diſpoſition à
tout office & tout exercice louable & digne? Les dames en verité ſe conſolent, que ces
deſcrieurs de leur merite ne ſe peuuent prouuer habiles gens, ſi tous ces eſprits le ſont:
& qu’vn homme fin ne dira pas, encores qu’il le creuſt, que le merite & paſſedroit du
ſexe feminin tire court, pres celuy du maſculin; iuſques à ce que par arreſt il ait faict
declarer tous ceux là buffles, affin d’infirmer leur teſmoignage ſi contraire à tel decry.
Et buffles faudroit il encores declarer des Peuples entiers & des plus ſublins, entre
autres ceux de Smyrne en Tacitus: qui pour obtenir iadis à Rome preſſeãce de
nobleſſe ſur leurs voiſins, allegoient eſtre deſcendus, ou de Tantalus fils de Iupiter ou
de Theſeus petit fils de Neptune ou d’vne Amazone, laquelle par ce moyen ils
contrepeſoient à ces Dieux. Pour le regard de la loy Salique, qui priue les femmes de
la couronne, elle n’a lieu qu’en France. Et fut inuẽtée au temps de Pharamond, pour
la ſeulle conſideration des guerres contre l’Empire duquel nos Peres ſecoüoient le
ioug: le ſexe feminin eſtant vray ſemblablement d’vn corps moins propre aux armes,
Hotman pour par la neceſſité du port & nourriture des enfans. Il faut rémarquer
l’etymologie des Pairs: encores neantmoins, que les Pairs de France ayans eſté créez
du Tillet & Math. en premiere intention comme vne eſpece de perſonniers des
Hiſtoire du Roy pour Roys, ainſi que leur nom le declare: les dames Pairaiſſes de leur
les Dames Pairreſſes. chef ont ſeance, priuilege & voix deliberatiue par tout où les pairs
en ont & de meſme eſtendue. Comme auſſi les Lacedemoniens
ce braue & genereux Peuple, conſultoit de toutes affaires priuées & publiques auec
Plut. ſes femmes. Bien a ſeruy cependant aux François, de trouuer l’inuention des
Regentes, pour vn equiualent des Roys; car ſans cela combien y a il que leur
Eſtat fuſt par terre? Nous ſçaurions bien dire auiourd’huy par eſpreuue, quelle neceſſité
les minoritez des Roys ont de cette recepte. Les Germains ces belliqueux Peuples,
dit Tacitus, qui apres plus de deux cens ans de guerre, furent pluſtoſt triumphéz que
vaincus; portoient dot à leurs femmes, non au rebours. Ils auoient au ſurplus des
Nations, qui n’eſtoient iamais regies que par ce ſexe. Et quand Ænee preſente à Didon
le ſceptre d’Ilione, les ſcoliaſtes diſent, que cela prouient, de ce que les dames filles
aiſnées, telle qu’eſtoit cette Princeſſe, regnoient anciennement aux maiſons Royalles.
Veult on deux plus beaux enuers à la loy Salique, ſi deux enuers elle peut ſouffrir? Si
ne meſpriſoient pas les femmes nos anciens Gaulois, ny les Carthaginois auſſi; lors
qu’eſtans vnis en l’armée d’Hanibal pour paſſer les Alpes, ils eſtablirent les dames
Gauloiſes arbitres de leurs differends. Et quand les hommes deſroberoient à ce ſexe
en pluſieurs lieux, part aux meilleurs aduantages; l’inegalité des forces corporelles
plus que des ſpirituelles, ou du merite, peut facilement eſtre cauſe du larrecin & de ſa
ſouffrance: forces corporelles, qui ſont vertus ſi baſſes, que la beſte en tient plus par
deſſus l’homme, que l’homme par deſſus la femme. Et ſi ce meſme Hiſtoriographe Latin
nous apprend, qu’où la force regne, l’equité, la probité, la modeſtie meſme, ſont les
attributs du vainqueur; s’eſtonnera-on, que la ſuffiſance & les merites en general,
ſoient ceux de nos hommes, priuatiuement aux femmes.
Au ſurplus l’animal humain n’eſt homme ny femme, à le bien prendre, les ſexes
eſtants faicts non ſimplement, mais ſecundum quid, comme parle l’Eſchole: c’eſt à dire
pour la ſeule propagation. L’vnique forme & difference de cet animal, ne conſiſte qu’en
l’ame humaine. Et s’il eſt permis de rire en paſſãt, le quolibet ne ſera pas hors de ſaisõ,
nous apprenant; qu’il n’eſt rien plus ſemblable au chat ſur vne feneſtre, que la chatte.
L’homme & la femme ſont tellement vns, que ſi l’homme eſt plus que la femme, la
femme eſt plus que l’homme. L’homme fut creé maſle & femelle, dit l’Eſcriture, ne
comptant ces deux que pour vn. Dont Ieſus-Chriſt eſt appellé fils de l’homme, bien qu’il
ne le ſoit que de la femme. Ainſi parle apres le grãd Sainct Baſile: La vertu de Homil. I.
l’homme & de la femme eſt meſme choſe, puis que Dieu leur a decerné
meſme creation & meſme honneur: maſculum & fœminam fecit eos. Or en ceux de qui
la Nature eſt vne & meſme, il faut que les actions auſſi le ſoient, & que l’eſtime & loyer
en ſuitte ſoient pareils, où les œuures ſont pareilles. Voila donc la depoſition de ce
puiſſant pilier, & venerable teſmoing de l’Egliſe. Il n’eſt pas mauuais de ſe ſouuenir ſur
ce poinct, que certains ergotiſtes anciens, ont paſſé iuſques à cette niaiſe arrogance,
de debattre au ſexe feminin l’image de Dieu à difference de l’homme: laquelle image
ils deuoient, ſelon ce calcul attacher à la barbe. Il failloit de plus & par conſequent,
deſnier aux femmes l’image de l’homme, ne pouuant luy reſſembler, ſans qu’elles
reſſemblaſſent à celuy auquel il reſſemble. Dieu meſme leur a departy les Olda Debora.
dons de Prophetie indifferamment auec les hommes, les ayant eſtablies
auſſi pour Iuges, inſtructrices & conductrices de ſon Peuple fidelle en paix & en guerre:
& qui plus eſt, rendu triumphantes auec luy des hautes victoires, qu’elles ont auſſi
maintefois emportées & arborées en diuers lieux du Monde: mais ſur quelles gens, à
voſtre aduis? Cyrus & Theſeus: à ces deux on adiouſte Hercules, lequel elles ont ſinon
vaincu, du moins bien battu. Auſſi fut la cheute de Pentaſilée, couronnemẽt de la gloire
d’Achilles: oyez Seneque & Ronſard parlans de luy.

L’Amazone il vainquit dernier effroy des Grecs.


Pentaſilée il rua ſur la poudre.

Ont elles au ſurplus, (ce mot par occaſion) moins excellé de foy, qui comprend toutes
les vertus principales, que de ſuffiſance & de force magnanime & guerriere?
Paterculus nous apprend, qu’aux proſcriptions Romaines, la fidelité des enfãs fut
nulle, des affranchis legere, des femmes treſgrande. Que ſi Sainct Paul, ſuyuãt ma
route des teſmoignages ſaincts, leur deffend le miniſtere & leur commande le ſilence
en l’Egliſe: il eſt euident que ce n’eſt point par aucun meſpris: ouy bien ſeulement, de
crainte qu’elles n’eſmeuuent les tentations, par cette montre ſi claire & publique qu’il
faudroit faire en miniſtrant & preſchant, de ce qu’elles ont de grace & de beauté plus
que les hommes. Ie dis que l’exemption de meſpris eſt euidente, puiſque cet Apoſtre
parle de Theſbé comme de ſa coadiutrice en l’œuure de noſtre Seigneur, ſans toucher
le grand credit de Saincte Petronille vers ſainct Pierre: & puis auſſi que la Magdeleine
eſt nommée en l’Egliſe egale aux Apoſtres, par Apoſtolis. Voire Entre autres au
que l’Egliſe & eux-meſmes ont permis vne exception de ceſte Calendrier des Grecs,
reigle de ſilence pour elle, qui preſcha trente ans en la Baume de publié par Genebrard.
Marſeille au rapport de toute la Prouence. Et ſi quelqu’vn
impugne ce teſmoignage de predications, on luy demandera que faiſoient les Sibyles,
ſinon preſcher l’Vniuers par diuine inſpiration, ſur l’euenement futur de Ieſus-Chriſt?
Toutes les anciennes Nations cõcedoient la Preſtriſe aux fẽmes, indifferemment auec
les hommes. Et les Chreſtiens ſont au moins forcez de conſentir, qu’elles ſoyent
capables d’appliquer le Sacrement de Bapteſme: mais quelle faculté de diſtribuer les
autres, leur peut eſtre iuſtement deniée; ſi celle de diſtribuer ceſtuy-là, leur eſt iuſtement
accordé? De dire que la neceſſité des petits enfãs mourãs, ait forcé les Peres anciens
d’eſtablir cet vſage en deſpit d’eux: il eſt certain qu’ils n’auroient iamais creu que la
neceſſité les peuſt diſpenſer de mal faire, iuſques aux termes de permettre violer &
diffamer l’application d’vn Sacrement. Et partant concedans ceſte faculté de
diſtribution aux femmes, on void à clair qu’ils ne les ont interdites de diſtribuer les
autres Sacremẽs, que pour maintenir touſiours plus entiere l’auctorité des hommes;
ſoit pour eſtre de leur ſexe, ſoit afin qu’à droit ou à tort, la paix fuſt plus aſſeurée entre
Epiſt. les deux ſexes, par la foibleſſe & rauallement de l’vn. Certes ſainct Ieroſme eſcrit
ſagement à noſtre propos; qu’en matiere du ſeruice de Dieu, l’eſprit & la doctrine
doiuent eſtre conſiderez, non le ſexe. Sentence qu’on doit generaliſer, pour permettre
aux Dames à plus forte raiſon, toute action & ſciẽce honneſte: & cela ſuyuant auſſi les
intentions du meſme ſainct, qui de ſa part honnore & auctoriſe bien fort leur ſexe.
Dauantage ſainct Iean l’Aigle & le plus chery des Euangeliſtes, ne meſpriſoit pas les
fẽmes, non plus que ſainct Pierre, ſainct Paul & ces deux Peres, i’entends ſaint Baſile
& ſainct Ieroſme; puis qu’il leur addreſſe ſes Epiſtres particulieremẽt: ſans Electra.
parler d’infinis autres Ss: ou Peres, qui font pareille addreſſe de leurs Eſcrits.
Quand au faict de Iudith ie n’en daignerois faire mention s’il eſtoit particulier, cela
s’appelle dependant du mouuement & volonté de ſon auctrice: non plus que ie ne
parle des autres de ce qualibre; bien qu’ils ſoient immenſes en quantité, comme ils
ſont autant heroiques en qualité de toutes ſortes, que ceux qui couronnent les plus
illuſtres hommes. Ie n’enregiſtre point les faicts priuez, de crainte qu’ils ſemblent, non
aduantages & dons du ſexe, ains boüillons d’vne vigueur priuée & ſpecialle. Mais
celuy de Iudith merite place en ce lieu, parce qu’il eſt bien vray, que ſon deſſein
tombant au cœur d’vne ieune dame, entre tant d’hommes laſches & faillis de cœur, à
tel beſoing, en ſi haulte & ſi difficile entrepriſe, & pour tel fruict, que le ſalut d’vn Peuple
& d’vne Cité fidelle à Dieu: ſemble pluſtoſt eſtre vne inſpiration & prerogatiue diuine
vers les femmes, qu’vn traict purement voluntaire. Comme auſſi le ſemble eſtre celuy
de la Pucelle d’Orleans, accompagné de meſmes circonſtances enuiron, mais de plus
ample & large vtilité, s’eſtendant iuſques au ſalut d’vn grand Royaume & de ſon Prince.

Æneid. I.
alluſion. Cette illuſtre Amazone inſtruicte aux ſoins de Mars,
Fauche les eſcadrons & braue les hazars:
Veſtant le dur plaſtron ſur ſa ronde mammelle,
Dont le bouton pourpré de graces eſtincelle:
Pour couronner ſon chef de gloire & de lauriers,
Vierge elle oſe affronter les plus fameux guerriers.

Adjouſtons que la Magdelene eſt la ſeule ame, à qui le Redempteur ait iamais
prononcé ce mot, & promis cette auguſte grace: En tous lieux où ſe preſchera
l’Euangile il ſera parlé de toy. Ieſus-Chriſt d’autrepart, declara ſa tres heureuſe & tres
glorieuſe reſurrection aux dames les premieres, affin de les rẽdre, dit vn venerable
Pere ancien, Apoſtreſſes aux propres Apoſtres: cela, cõme lon ſçait, auec miſſion
expreſſe: Va, dit il, à cette cy meſme, & recite aux Apoſtres & à Pierre ce que tu as
veu. Surquoy il faut notter, qu’il manifeſta ſa nouuelle naiſſance eſgalement aux
femmes qu’aux hommes, en la perſonne d’Anne fille de Phannel, qui le recongneut en
meſme inſtant, que le bon vieillard Sainct Simeon. Laquelle naiſſance, d’abondant, les
Sybilles nommées, ont predite ſeules entre les Gentils, excellent priuilege du ſexe
feminin. Quel honneur faict aux femmes auſſi, ce ſonge ſuruenu chez Pilate;
s’addreſſant à l’vne d’elles priuatiuement à tous les hommes, & en telle & ſi haulte
occaſion. Et ſi les hommes ſe vantent, que Ieſus-Chriſt ſoit nay de leur ſexe, on reſpond,
qu’il le failloit par neceſſaire bien ſceance, ne ſe pouuant pas ſans ſcandale, meſler
ieune & à toutes les heures du iour & de la nuict parmy les preſſes, aux fins de
conuertir, ſecourir & ſauuer le genre humain, s’il euſt eſté du ſexe des femmes:
notamment en face de la malignité des Iuifs. Que ſi quelqu’vn au reſte eſt ſi fade;
d’imaginer maſculin ou feminin en Dieu, bien que ſon nom ſemble ſonner le maſculin,
ny conſequemment beſoin d’acception d’vn ſexe pluſtoſt que de l’autre, pour honnorer
l’incarnation de ſon fils; cettuy cy monſtre à plein iour, qu’il eſt auſſi mauuais Philoſophe
que Theologien. D’ailleurs, l’aduantage qu’ont les hommes par ſon incarnation en leur
ſexe; (s’ils en peuuent tirer vn aduantage, veu cette neceſſité remarquée) eſt cõpenſé
par ſa conception tres precieuſe au corps d’vne femme, par l’entiere perfection de
cette femme, vnique à porter nom de parfaicte entre toutes les creatures purement
humaines, depuis la cheute de nos premiers parens, & par ſon aſſumption vnique en
ſuiect humain auſſi.
Finalement ſi l’Eſcripture a declaré le mary, chef de la femme, la plus grande ſottiſe
que l’homme peuſt faire, c’eſt de prendre cela pour paſſedroict de dignité. Car veu les
exemples, aucthoritez & raiſons nottées en ce diſcours, par où l’egalité des graces &
faueurs de Dieu vers les deux eſpeces ou ſexes eſt prouuée, voire leur vnité meſme, &
veu que Dieu prononce: Les deux ne ſeront qu’vn: & prononce encores: L’hõme
quittera pere & mere pour ſuiure ſa femme; il paroiſt que cette declaration n’eſt faicte
que par le beſoin expres de nourrir paix en mariage. Lequel beſoin requeroit, ſans
doubte, qu’vne des parties cédaſt à l’autre, & la preſtance des forces du maſle ne
pouuoit pas ſouffrir que la ſoubmiſſiõ vĩt de ſa part. Et quand bien il ſeroit veritable,
ſelon que quelques vns maintiennent, que cette ſoubmiſſion fut imposée à la femme
pour chaſtiement du peché de la pomme: cela encores eſt bien eſloigné de conclure à
la pretendue preferance de dignité en l’homme. Si lon croioit que l’Eſcripture luy
commendaſt de ceder à l’homme, comme indigne de le contrecarrer, voyez l’abſurdité
qui ſuiuroit: la femme ſe treuueroit digne d’eſtre faicte à l’image du Createur, de iouyr
de la treſſaincte Eucariſtie, des myſteres de la Redemptiõ, du Paradis & de la viſion
voire poſſeſſion de Dieu, non pas des aduantages et priuileges de l’homme: ſeroit ce
pas declarer l’homme plus precieux & releué que telles choſes, & partant commettre
le plus grief des blaſphemes?
FIN.
L’ I M P R I M E V R A R A N G É
ces vers icy pour emplir le reſte

de la feuille.

AVTHEVR INCERTAIN.

Lvmine Acron dextro captus, Leonilla ſiniſtro,


Et potis eſt forma vincere vterque Deos.
Blande puer, lumen quod habes concede ſorori:
Sic tu cæcus Amor, ſic erit illa Venus.

VERSION.

Lys & ſa ieune mere außy beaux que les Dieux:


De deux coſtez diuers ont perdu l’vn des yeux.
Lys, donne ton bon œil à ta mere Argentine;
Tu ſeras Cupidon, elle ſera Cyprine.

AVTREMENT

Lyſe & ſon petit Lys außy beaux que les Dieux,
De deux coſtez diuers ont perdu l’vn des yeux.
Si Lys donne l’autre œil à ſa mere admirée;
Il eſt l’aueugle Amour, & Lyſe Cytherée.
EX HORATIO.
Dial.

Donec gratus eram tibi,


Nec quiſquam potior brachia candidæ
Ceruici iuuenis dabat,
Perſarum vigüi Rege beatior.
Donec non alia magis
Arſiſti, neque erat Lydia poſt Chloen,
Lydia multi nominis,
Romana vigui clarior Ilia.
Me nunc Thraſſa Chloe regit,
Dulces docta modos & Cytharæ ſciens:
Pro qua non metuam mori,
Si parcent animæ fata ſuperſtiti.
Me torret face mutua
Thurini Calais filius Orinthi:
Pro quo bis patiar mori,
Si parcent puero fata ſuperſtiti.
Quid ſi priſca redit Venus,
Diductosque iugo cogit aheneo?
Si flaua excutitur Chloe
Reiectæque patet ianua Lydiæ?
Quanquam ſidere pulchrior
Ille eſt, tu leuior cortice & improbo
Iracundior Adria;
Tecum viuere amem, tecum obeam libens.
DIALOGVE D’HORACE
ET DE LYDIE.

Tandis que mon Amour t’enflãmoit conſtãmẽt,


Tandis qu’vn ieune amy, brauãt ma ialouſie,
Ne preſſoit ton beau col d’vn mol embraſſement,
I’ay flory plus heureux qu’vn Monarque d’Aſie.
Deuant que ton eſprit briſaſt ſa loyauté,
Deuant qu’il euſt chery d’vne aueugle folie
Cloé plus que Lydie, illuſtre de beauté,
I’ay ſurmonté l’eſclat de la Romaine Ilie.
Cloé Greque ſans pair me poſſede à ſon tour
Par sõ luth & ſa voix qui ſcait charmer l’oreille:
Et mourrois volontiers, victime de l’Amour,
Pour conſeruer mourant cette ieune merueille.
Calaïs Thurien épris de mes appas,
Par vn reuers gentil de ſes attraits me bleſſe:
Et ſouffrirois deux fois la rigueur du trespas,
Pour ſauuer du tombeau cette belle ieuneße.
Quoy ſi l’amour premier reſſuſcitant ſon feu
Ramenoit ſoubs ton ioug mon ame reuoltée?
Quoy ſi mon cœur ſolide éterniſant ſon vœu,
Ma Lydie eſt reçeue & Cloé rejettée?
Encor qu’il ſoit pl9 beau qu’vn aſtre au frõt des cieux,
Toy plus leger qu’vn liege & plus mutin que l’õde;
Ie veux rouler mes iours aux priſons de tes yeux,
Ie veux que mon cercueuil tes obſeques ſeconde.
I N C E R TA I N S V R L’ H O R L O G E
DE SABLE.

Exiguus vitro puluis qui diuidit horas,


Et leuis anguſtum ſæpe recurrit iter,
Olim Alcipus erat: qui Marthæ vt vidit ocellos
Arſit, & eſt ſubito factus ab igne cinis.
Irrequiete cinis, miſeros teſtabere amantes,
More tuo, nulla poſſe quiete frui.

VERSION

Ce peu de poudre, helas qui fîle en ces deux verres,


Courant & recourant ſur ſes eſtroictes erres,
Affin de marquer l’heure & meſurer le iour,
Eſtoit iadis Alcipe eſclaue de l’Amour.
Bruſlé des yeux de Marthe il coula tout en cẽdre:
Et faut, cendre inquiete, en ton aſpect cõprendre:
Qu’vn miſerable eſprit bleſſé par vn bel œil
N’a iamais de repos s’il te manque au cercueil.
VERSION MODERNISÉE

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