ABSTRACT
For female youth, the slow transformation into sexual maturity recast the social expectations of family and outsiders, of women and men. It also changed how the teenager saw herself. Sexuality brought new opportunities and duties, but also vulnerabilities. Becoming sexually attractive turned girls into potential brides. It also opened them up to illicit male attention and abuse. Especially among those of lower status, the supervision and protection of nubile girls by parents and their surrogates sometimes lapsed. At the same time, some agency did fall, for better and worse, to young women themselves. Personal stories reconstructed from criminal trials in early modern Rome show how three non-elite teenagers navigated their first sexual experiences.
