The evolution of women's asylums since 1500 : from refuges for ex-prostitutes to shelters for battered women / Sherrill Cohen.

New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.

viii, 262 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm.

The wife, the nun, and the prostitute : gender ideology in medieval and early modern Europe -- Prostitution and the Tuscan refuges -- Anomalous women and girls in the Tuscan refuges -- "At work and recreation together" : life inside the women's refuges of Tuscany -- The Tuscan refuges as social institutions -- The adaptation of an institutional model : from the Monastero delle Convertite to the Mary Magdalene Project -- Social legacies of the early modern women's asylums.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-254) and index.