Early Modern Europe’s Inexplicable Obsession With Eunuchs

The word “eunuch” might invoke the image of an impotent man, or the image of an Ottoman harem, where castrated men stand in the corners. It might be assumed that such men are trusted with the women because they are chaste or unable to arouse. Early modern Europeans, however, had many encounters with eunuchs where this was not the case. Not only did women marry and have affairs with eunuchs, but many writers also fantasized about such affairs. Yet such unions proved scandalous, as they were–by and large–illegal.

Eunuchs were a more regular part of the early modern landscape than we may think. Certain men were castrated in surgical operations and lived the rest of their lives as eunuchs. Italy was the only part of Europe that regularly practiced castrating men. These so-called “castrati” were castrated as young boys to preserve a valuable soprano singing voice. Such singing voices were incredibly popular across Europe. Incidentally, they also preserved an attractive feminine look—desired by both women and men. A contemporary English poem from John Hall (1627-1656) runs:

Thou Newter Gender! Whom a gown
Can make a woman, Breeches none.

Many of these castrati proceeded to travel across the courts of Europe, where they were afforded celebrity and renown for their unique voices. Yet these castrati–or eunuchs–faced significant legal challenges in seventeenth-century Europe. Despite being beloved celebrities across European courts, they were socially and legally marginalized. Given their impotence, eunuchs were legally barred from marrying. A papal brief given by Pope Sixtus V in 1587 explicitly made the marriage of eunuchs forbidden because eunuchs were seen as different from men.

The Bizarre Case of a Marriage in Seventeenth-Century Dresden

In 1667, the stepdaughter of a Dresden lawyer quickly became a much-discussed topic at the court in Saxony. Dorothea Lichtwer had agreed to marry one Bartolomeo Sorlisi, a singer at the court of Dresden’s Hofkapelle, whose extraordinary singing ability was owed to Sorlisi being a castrato.

Sorlisi was believed to have been born in Milan between 1631-1632 and first arrived in northern Europe around 1646 at a Bavarian court in Munich. His career at the court in Dresden began around 1651 when the Saxon electoral prince Johann Georg II (1613-1680) recruited him from the Bavarian court. Sorlisi first met Dorothea Lichtwer through her stepfather—the Dresden lawyer Moritz Junghanns. Sorlisi was attempting to buy a property for himself at this time and required the services of the lawyer Junghanns to avoid any potential brokering scams. Even after the castrato singer purchased a property for himself, he remained a family friend.

During his visits to the family, the castrato singer slowly became acquainted with Junghann’s sixteen-year-old stepdaughter Dorothea Lichtwer. The details of the courtship process are not available to us today, but eventually, the castrato asked for the young Lichtwer’s hand in marriage.

Both Lutheran scholars of ecclesiastical law and Catholic doctrine wrote against marriages between castrati (or eunuchs) and women at this time. Given their inability to procreate and produce a family, eunuchs were considered illegitimate partners. Alongside an anxiety that marriage to a eunuch would produce no children, it is also implied that Lichtwer’s parents feared that Lichtwer would be sexually dissatisfied with such a marriage.

With the lack of potential children on the horizon and the genuine potential that Lichtwer might become “promiscuous” and lead to adultery, the possibility of a successful union between Sorlisi and Lichtwer was looking less and less likely. Sorlisi, however, continued to visit his beloved Lichtwer daily. According to a letter from Lichtwer’s stepfather Junghanns, Lichtwer’s parents finally conceded. On the 1st of May 1664, they entered into a betrothal agreement with the castrato over their young daughter. This document still survives. Lichtwer’s parents write that:

“As such an intention certainly struck us as not a little strange, we also took the maiden in hand immediately afterwards and questioned her about it, and then both of us objected clearly and at length to both parties, and explained that this marriage could not take place, or ever be allowed. However, they both remained determined not to part from one another, unless death should separate them; in particular, however, the daughter let herself be heard with thoughtful words that she would not be dissuaded from it, and that one should not imagine that she would marry any other besides this Mr. Sorlisi all her life long.”

Gaining the Favor of Authorities

The next challenge to the young couple would be to gain the approval of an ecclesiastical authority. These marriages were viewed skeptically, however, by such authorities and seen as pretenses to fornication. Ecclesiastical authorities perceived this sort of sex crime as illicit as sodomy, and such a marriage between eunuch and woman was (ethically speaking) closer to male-male sodomy than male-female marriage. The description of such a marriage from the theology faculty of Giessen in response to the Sorlisi case illustrates this:

“When there is a union of this type, which is against the institution, opposed to nature, shameful, brings ignominy to holy marriage and is a complete abuse.”

These Europeans inherited their medical knowledge from practitioners and thinkers from Antiquity. Aristotle wrote about eunuchs, and his thought influenced early modern medical practitioners. As these eunuchs were only castrated by the testes, this meant they could still have sexual relations with a woman—but never ‘satisfy’ her.

For this reason, they were believed to both have a higher sex drive and indulge in endless sexual passion.

Yet, the approval of a church authority was a condition set out by Lichtwer’s parents in the betrothal agreement. Sorlisi signed this agreement with Lichtwer’s parents in 1664, yet four more years would pass until their marriage became a reality. To procure this permission, Sorlisi was forced to appeal to the Leipzig consistory for a favorable judgment. To make a successful appeal, the castrato singer was required by the consistory’s judges to describe his genitalia and sexual capacity in plain and frank terms.

He did so, yet this was not enough to authorize their marriage. Like any other illicit sexual union, Sorlisi’s marriage was seen as against “divine and natural law.” Yet the church authorized many unions between men and women where one or another partner was impotent. Among other arguments, Sorlisi cited a recent incident in Hamburg, where a 76-year-old widow was married to a 20-year-old man. In October of 1666, Sorlisi’s appeal was accepted. The Leipzig consistory ruled in Sorlisi’s favor and endorsed the marriage.

This did not mean that things would be smooth sailing for the couple. The word of their marriage had spread across Saxony and scandalized the court and local townspeople.

The newlywed Dorothea Lichtwer was briefly excommunicated from her church. She was barred from confession and receiving the sacrament by her local pastor, who looked on her as abominable for marrying a eunuch. This was cause for further scandal, yet in the end, it was Lichtwer’s lawyer stepfather who–just as he had once helped Sorlisi purchase a home–again used his profession to rescue the couple.

Ten years before the marriage of Sorlisi and Lichtwer scandalized the courts of Saxony, over across the channel, an English playwright by the name of William Wycherley authored the comedy The Country Wife (1675). The play follows the life of the mischievous and lusty libertine Horner, who is on a mission to cuckold (or ‘horn’) other men. Wycherley was contemporary to other figures of Restoration libertine comedy—such as Aphra Behn, England’s first female playwright, and the notorious Earl of Rochester.

The Country Wife begins with the libertine Horner returning to England with a scheme to seduce other men’s wives while keeping their husbands blissfully ignorant. Horner begins to spread the rumor that he has been castrated in a terrible incident abroad. If the wives of the town find out that he is a eunuch, he says, then they will pretend in public to find him repulsive—but secretly instead desire him. Horner turns out to be correct.

The play charts his escapades, seducing women who condemn him publicly and covertly try to have their way with him. The play is now most remembered for its infamous “china scene,” where two of Horner’s lovers fight over getting to try Horner’s “china” in a little closet out of view:

Lady Fidget. And I have been toyling and moyling, for the pretti’st piece of China, my Dear.
Horner. Nay she has been too hard for me do what I cou’d.
Lady Squeamish. Oh Lord I’le have some China too, good Mr. Horner, don’t think to give other people China, and me none, come in with me too.
Horner. Upon my honour I have none left now.
Lady Squeamish. Nay, Nay I have known you deny your China before now, but you shan’t put me off so, come —
Horner. This Lady had the last there.

The “china scene” is now remembered as the most provocative in the entire play and was even rumored to have put “china” in the popular vernacular as a euphemism for sex. The Country Wife is, however, a satire and not a history. It scorns urban respectability and the supposed sexual hypocrisy of women and does this precisely through exaggeration and distortion. It does not tell us whether women indeed did find eunuchs irrepressibly attractive. The best jokes, however–it should be noted–ring true.

As the Sorlisi case tells us, there certainly were women who did marry and had affairs with eunuchs. Eunuchs were not unsexy or chaste for early moderns. According to the medical and theological authorities that informed early modern Europeans, eunuchs inspired too much sexual passion. The problem was that they couldn’t satisfy that passion with children—the only ethically acceptable outcome for sex.