The 16th and 17th Centuries in Catholic Europe witnessed the growth of new institutions designed to house repentant prostitutes and girls and women at risk of becoming prostitutes. This little-known surge in institution building arose out of the Catholic reform movement and the Counter Reformation. In Western societies from the 16th Century onward, far more types of gender-specific institutions have been created for women than for men. The institutions for women served many social functions, usually including the control of women's sexuality. Representing a new residential option for women beyond the traditional ones of marriage or convent, these institutions were "asylums" in a dual sense, operating as both sites of internment and shelters from harm. The author shows how the multi- functional women's institutions of the early modern era served as the prototypes for a variety of asylums for women that emerged in later centuries, including hostels, homes for unwed mothers, and battered women's shelters. In a major revision of the historiography of social institutions, this book argues that the women's institutions of early modern Europe played a pioneering role in developing techniques and institutional forms in the fields of corrections and social welfare. A 408-item bibliography and a subject index