Differences in secondary adjustments among monks and nuns

Abstract

How do monks and nuns manage expectations regarding how to ‘open their hearts’? What alternatives do they have and what are the consequences? Based on a multi-sited case study of Cistercian monasteries in France, this article compares the different situation of nuns and monks. The analysis shows how monks are free to choose who they will ‘open their heart’ to, whereas nuns are expected to rely on the abbess. While certain ways that nuns circumvent these expectations are illegitimate, some ways of distancing from the abbess align with, rather than diverge from, other central tenets of monastic life. Compared to monks, nuns face a double-penalty, being less free and facing more ambivalent expectations within this restricted space.