The Book of the City of Ladies Book 3, Chapters 16-20 Summary

  • After giving more examples of holy women, Lady Justice asks Christine what more convincing she could possibly need, since it's clear that women have done great things in history and that God loves them every bit as much as he loves men.
  • The truth is that even though many authors have criticized women, there's one man who never did, and that's Jesus Christ. In the Bible, Jesus only says good things about women.
  • And with all that said, Lady Justice hands the mic back to Christine and asks her to finish everything off.
  • Christine turns back to us readers and says that the City of Ladies is now finished and filled with all of history's best women. Now that it's finished, she asks all women not to get too proud or cocky with their newfound sense of self-esteem.
  • At the end of the day, Christine thinks it's always better to stay humble.
  • Christine kind of backpedals on some of her earlier arguments for women's empowerment when she advises her female readers to let their husbands have power in the household. They should also be cool with whatever flaws their husbands have because, presumably, it's always possible for husbands to be worse. Um, okay.
  • Christine thinks that women should be humble and patient on Earth so that they can get a good reward in heaven. In other words, just take whatever crummy treatment life has to give you, because God will reward you when it's all over.
  • All in all, Christine wants women everywhere to show men how good women can be. She wants women all over the world to lead virtuous, moral lives. That way, men will just look silly when they talk about how terrible women are.
  • And that's the end. Christine probably has thousands of other examples from history and literature about how great women can be. But she's going to leave things as they are for now, since she feels like she's made her point.
  • And we guess that she did make her point because here we are, studying her book more than 500 years later.