Utrum sapienti competat prolem habere?

Abstract

This chapter considers fourteenth-century Italian debates about the costs of marriage to the work of a philosopher. Following Heloise’s famous injunction against the idea of marriage to Abelard, when she railed against the impact it would have upon his work, this chapter investigates how the terms of this conversation were transformed by the insights of lay intellectuals of cities like Arezzo, Bologna, and Florence, who were grappling with the implications of fatherhood as part of the economic unit of the household, and its role in the political life of the city.