History Main / TakingTheVeil

* In the movie ''Film/RobinAndMarian'' the middle-aged Robin Hood returns from the crusades to discover Marian has, in his absence, taken holy vows and risen through the ranks of the convent to become Mother Superior.

* This is the main plot of the book and film ''Film/TheNunsStory'', starring Audrey Hepburn. The Vocation variety, as Gabrielle becomes a nun of her own free will, although she eventually realizes she isn't cut out to be a nun.

* ''Film/StealingHeaven'': Héloïse reluctantly becomes a nun due to Abelard's urging, but is clearly unhappy during the ceremony, declining to kiss the crucifix with the excuse of being unworthy but pretty obviously from spite.

* Avice of Thornbury in the Literature/BrotherCadfael novel ''The Leper of St Giles'', has been a noble's mistress for years. She becomes a nun after his murder as a career, not a vocation. Cadfael reflects that with her energy and ability she's likely to end up an Abbess or even a saint.
** She returns later in the series as Sister Magdalena and is very much a DistaffCounterpart to Cadfael.
** In "Monk's Hood", Cadfael's NewOldFlame Richildis thinks that she's the cause of a gender-flipped version -- that Cadfael took the cowl because she married another man. Cadfael doesn't disabuse her of the notion.
** In ''The Confession of Brother Haluin'' half the cast is either this trope or considering becoming it. The eponymous Brother Haluin joined Shrewsbury Abbey to atone for a disastrous love affair. [[spoiler: And it turns out the lover he thinks is dead is very much alive and has herself 'retired to a convent' after a forced but not unhappy marriage]]. Haluin and Cadfael encounter a young man considering taking the cowl because the girl he wants is forbidden (she's his father's half-sister). The girl herself agrees to make another marriage to a fine young man who wants her badly only to disappear the night before the wedding [[spoiler: She takes refuge in her mother's convent where she is eventually discovered]]. Finally, while guests at a new convent Cadfael is relieved to see that the young sister portress - almost certainly immured by her family for economic reasons -- is thoroughly enjoying her responsible office and happy in her new life.

** Friar Laurence in ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' also had this plan for Juliet after discovering that Romeo had committed suicide. Juliet commits suicide instead.

Reasons of drama have split this up into several types:

This is usually a EndingTrope, and a BittersweetEnding at that, because she usually is escaping tragedy to the only refuge she has. It may also be a way to dispose of minor characters without much ado.

A woman's father ruthlessly compels her to enter the convent to [[ParentalMarriageVeto shut her off from her lover]], because he thinks she has disgraced the family, or just to save her dowry. (The permanent form of LockedAwayInAMonastery.)[[note]]Convents also served as safe refuges for women in wartime, to protect from rape. However, finance was generally the main reason women -- and even little girls -- got popped into convents.[[/note]]

Or a woman who promised IWillWaitForYou foolishly gave up hope, and her lover returns to find she entered a convent. Horrors! This differs from Retiring to A Convent in that her decision was foolish even if a desperate attempt to escape an ArrangedMarriage, and her being bound by her vows is treated as a dreadful thing. Unsurprisingly this particular trope was chiefly Protestant, and was a DiscreditedTrope by the end of the Victorian era.

Usually found only in explicitly religious literature. A woman wants to become a nun when her family considers it her duty to submit to an ArrangedMarriage. She is often -- especially when the story is far removed from RealLife -- SoBeautifulItsACurse, because they think they can get a good match because of it. Or, alternatively, she feels a strong internal conflict about whether to become a nun.

A RealLife vocation is a spiritual prompting, like becoming a priest or minister after feeling "called" by God. But a woman who merely wants to become a nun and does with little or no opposition (internal or external) seldom appears in stories while she is doing it, because that part of her story lacks drama.


Men can fall under any of these reason as well, although their greater ability to control their own lives and lesser need for a refuge have meant it's a predominately female trope. Men are also more likely to become TheHermit for religious reasons, which can also hit this trope.

[[folder: Fairy Tales ]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* The last third of ''Film/TheSongOfBernadette'' depicts Bernadette riding out of town on a gorgeous spring day to spend the rest of her life in a convent. In the film she wanted to marry her friend Antoine, but was told she had to "choose Heaven" because of her visions. Antoine shows up by the roadside with a huge spray of flowers announcing that [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest he plans to live a single life too]] (see the Real Life section, below).

[[folder: Literature ]]

* In ''Literature/JaneEyre'', Charlotte Bronte has Jane's cousin Eliza convert to Catholicism so that she can then pack her off to a convent, where she became abbess. Eliza's motivation seems to have been isolation from a world whose disorder and disruptive emotions irritated her.

* In the Literature/{{Deryni}} novels, Rothana Nur Hallaj was introduced as a novice nun who had taken her initial temporary vows for vocational reasons before her convent was attacked by Mearan troops. She met Kelson Haldane in the aftermath of that attack, and decided to set aside her vows for him (and another kind of public service as his queen). Things got complicated, and she later takes a place with rediscovered Servants of Saint Camber, partly for the vocation and partly for the shame/heartbreak-induced retirement. Later still, Kelson and Araxie [[spoiler: offer her the number two job at the new ''scola'' to provide an alternative service job outside a convent]].

* In ''Literature/{{Ivanhoe}}'', Rebecca of course does not become a nun, but she does explicitly compare her dedication to a life of good works and prayer when explaining it. It even gets lampshaded when Rowena asks Rebecca whether there are convents or something similar for Jewish women.[[note]]There have been periodic suggestions to create monastic orders for Jewish men and women, but at present they don't exist.[[/note]]

* Avice of Thornbury in the Literature/BrotherCadfael novel ''The Leper of St Giles'', has been a noble's mistress for years. She becomes a nun after his murder as a career not a vocation. Cadfael reflects that with her energy and ability she's likely to end up an Abbess or even a saint.
** She returns later in the series as Sister Magdalena, and is very much a DistaffCounterpart to Cadfael.

** In ''The Confession of Brother Haluin'' half the cast is either this trope or considering becoming it. The eponymous Brother Haluin joined Shrewsbury Abbey to atone for a disastrous love affair. [[spoiler: And it turns out the lover he thinks is dead is very much alive and has herself 'retired to a convent' after a forced but not unhappy marriage]]. Haluin and Cadfael encounter a young man considering taking the cowl because the girl he wants is forbidden (she's his father's half-sister). The girl herself agrees to make another marriage to a fine young man who wants her badly only to disappear the night before the wedding [[spoiler: She takes refuge in her mother's convent where she is eventually discovered]]. Finally while guests at a new convent Cadfael is relieved to see that the young sister portress - almost certainly immured by her family for economic reasons -- is thoroughly enjoying her responsible office and happy in her new life.
** Judith Perle, a protagonist of ''The Rose Rent'', confides a desire to take the veil to Cadfael who discourages her as she has no vocation just a wish to escape from the world. He sends her to Sister Magdalen who agrees with Cadfael but offers Judith the shelter of her convent - without vows - any time the world becomes to much for her, Judith, to bear.

* ''Literature/NickVelvet'': At the end of "The Theft of Turquoise Telephone", Nick discovers that Japanese general wanted for war crimes who was believed to have committed suicide at the end of the war had actually retreated to a Buddhist monastery and been living as monk for 30 years. (The man who committed suicide was actually the general's brother.) As he has spent 30 years atoning for his crimes, Nick leaves him to live out the rest of his life undisturbed, rather than expose him.
* In "Literature/LoreLay" by Clemens Brentano, the beautiful Lore Lay is accused of witchcraft. The bishop cannot bring himself to sentence Lore Lay to death, and instead orders her to become a nun.

* In ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', Elphaba spends several years living at a Unionist convent, despite being an atheist. At first it's an alibi for her terrorism, but she later stays for several years due to the trauma of [[spoiler:her lover Fiyero's]] death.

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* In ''Series/TheATeam'' episode "[[Recap/TheATeamS2E3TheOnlyChurchInTown The Only Church in Town]]", Face's lost love Leslie is a rare example of a woman becoming a nun willingly as a "calling". She explains to him that she wanted to become a nun even when they were in college together, and that she disappeared without talking to him because she knew having to see him again would shake her resolve. She further tells him that, while being married to him would have been "a wonderful second choice", at some point she knew she would have regretted not going with her calling. Despite initially feeling hurt at being ditched without even a last goodbye, Face eventually comes to understand and respect her position.

* ''Series/OneLifeToLive'' Gabrielle Medina runs to a convent to take vows because she's so terrified of her feelings for Max Holden. Him tracking her down and them going at on the grounds of the rectory changed her mind. Years later, Maggie Carpenter is already enrolled in the convent when she meets Max. She abandons her studies to pursue a relationship with him, but leaves town to resume them when it falls apart.
* On ''Series/TheMusketeers'', Aramis' FirstLove Isabel was LockedAwayInAMonastery by her parents and became a nun after she miscarried their baby, or so Aramis believes. In truth it was her choice, because she knew that Aramis would never be happy settling down and start a family.

[[folder: Myth & Legends ]]

[[folder: Opera ]]

[[folder: TabletopGames ]]
* Averted in ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', where joining the Adepta Sororitas is anything but a quiet life (they're called the Sisters of Battle for a reason). Essentially the Imperium's SeriousBusiness outlook on religion UpToEleven, the nuns take to the battlefield in PowerArmor and lots of flame-based weaponry, all the better to burn the heretic, kill the mutant, and purge the unclean with. While there are some Sororitas in non-combat roles, they still serve the Inquisition in some way, like decyphering xenos messages or running the Black Ships that bring potential psykers to Terra for training.

[[folder: Theater ]]

** Friar Laurence in ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' also had this plan for Juliet after discovering that Romeo had committed suicide. Juliet commit suicide instead.
* In ''Theatre/TheComedyOfErrors'' Egeon and his wife Emilia were separated at sea during a storm and both think the other had perished. Emilia entered a convent and eventually beame an abbess (Mother Superior).

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* In ''Literature/{{Wicked}}'', Elphaba spends several years living at a Unionist covenant, despite being an atheist. At first it's an alibi for her terrorism, but she later stays for several years due to the trauma of [[spoiler:her lover Fiyero's]] death.

These tropes can apply to either Buddhist or Christian nuns -- and were used in some CrystalDragonJesus pagan situations. Note that it applies only to nuns, and monks, whose taking vows was a significant event in either the story itself or its BackStory. [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do with]] GetTheeToANunnery.

* In Japanese period works becoming a nun can be the only way for a woman to get a divorce, or indeed avoid a forced marriage: basically she runs away, retire into a women's monastery, stay as Buddhist nun for a set number of years (around 7), and then she's free to go. In one story the male protagonist helped his unhappily married love interest get away from her husband this way and it was all very bittersweet, knowing they could be together 7 years into the future at the earliest.

* In one ''Series/FatherBrown'' episode, a woman convicted of murdering her husband has her sentence overturned after Father Brown uncovers evidence that exonerates her. He later realizes that she did in fact kill him, which she confesses was done in desperation because the husband was a vicious {{Domestic Abuse}}r. Since she's free but knows that she's guilty, she [[TheAtoner atones]] by becoming a nun.

* One legend of the Buddha had a woman bring him her dead son. The Buddha told her he could bring the boy back to life with mustard seed from a house that had never known mourning. When she could not find it, he instructed in her the Way, resulting her becoming a nun from vocation.

** One medieval saint hung outside her window holding on with her fingers until her family thought she had fled and then dressed as a man and ran off to get to the convent and escape the ArrangedMarriage.

* Of the three children who had [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_F%C3%A1tima visions of Mary at Fatima, Portugal]], only [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_L%C3%BAcia Lucia]] survived into adulthood. (Saints [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_and_Jacinta_Marto Francisco and Jacinta]] fell victim to the Spanish Flu, ages 9 and 10.) She was almost immediately popped into a school run by the Dorothean Sisters, and her name changed to Maria Dores, to keep pilgrims from hounding or venerating her. After graduation she chose to join the Dorotheans, later switching to the Discalced Carmelites, a very strict contemplative order, where she stayed until her death in 2005.
** The cultural trope of Marian visionaries joining a convent/monastery and/or dying young is so codified and ingrained in everyone's minds that visionaries are often criticised or flat-out disbelieved if they stay in the secular world or directly intervene in secular or religious matters. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Calvat Melanie Calvat]], one of the visionaries of La Salette, got lambasted for either trying to intervene in the French state's relationship with the Church, or being used as an UnwittingPawn by conservative politicians. The little visionaries of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Beauraing Our Lady of Beauraing]] were raked over the coals for getting married and having normal family lives. A priest who'd studied the visitations defended the children and issued a snarky comment about the stereotype causing people to expect all Marian visionaries to follow the same pattern.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchess_Elizabeth_Feodorovna Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna]], sister-in-law to the last Tsar of Russia and aunt to the above mentioned Princess Alice, became an Orthodox nun and dedicated herself to charity [[TheMourningAfter after the murder of her husband, Grand Duke Sergei]]. But in 1918 she, a fellow nun and a bunch of other nobles were subjected to a CruelAndUnusualDeath by a Red Army group [[note]](first they were [[BuriedAlive thrown into a mine]], then [[StuffblowingUp two hand grenades were tossed into the pit]], and ''then'' [[KillItWithFire the mine was set ablaze]])[[/note]]

* Averted in ''Film/ElCid''. Rodrigo and Ximene steal away to spend some time together, but Rodrigo is called once again to fight for Spain. Upset, and pregnant, Ximene returns to the convent where she was educated. The MotherSuperior tells her she's welcome to stay as a guest, but not to consider joining up:

* The last third of ''Film/TheSongOfBernadette'' depicts Bernadette riding out of town on a gorgeous spring day to spend the rest of her life in a convent. In the film she wanted to marry her friend Antoine, but was told she had to "choose Heaven" because of her visions. Antoine shows up by the roadside with a huge spray of flowers announcing that [[TheFirstCutIsTheDeepest he plans to live a single life too.]] (see the Real Life section, below).

* Saint Therese of Lisieux (formerly Marie-Therese Martin), three of her sisters (Pauline, Marie and Leonie) ''and'' one of their cousins (Marie Guerin) became nuns at one point or another. Therese herself had allegedly wanted to do this ever since she was a kid, but she was turned down by the local Carmelite convents for her youth and didn't get her wish granted until she was at least fifteen.

* Betty Ross Banner did this during Peter David's run on ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk.''

These tropes can apply to either Buddhist or Christian nuns -- and were used in some CrystalDragonJesus pagan situations. Note that it applies only to nuns, and monks, whose taking vows was a significant event in either the story itself or its BackStory. [[IThoughtItMeant Has nothing to do with]] GetTheeToANunnery.

-->--''In This House of Brede''

* In ''Literature/WarriorCats'', each Clan has a medicine cat, who serves as TheMedic and the religious leader of their Clan, and who is forbidden to take a mate.

** The cultural trope of Marian visionaries joining a convent/monastery and/or dying young is so codified and ingrained in everyone's minds that visionaries often get criticised if they stay in the secular world or directly intervene in secular or religious matters. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Calvat Melanie Calvat]], one of the visionaries of La Salette, got lambasted for either trying to intervene in the French state's relationship with the Church, or being used as an UnwittingPawn by conservative politicians. The little visionaries of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Beauraing Our Lady of Beauraing]] were raked over the coals for getting married and having normal family lives. A priest who'd studied the visitations issued a snarky comment about kids getting popped into convents and dying at 22 of TB.

* Bl. Imelda Lambertini (1322-1333) begged to join a Dominican convent at ''five''. Supposedly she was accepted at nine.[[note]]Even into the 17th century, little girls could and routinely did take the veil at twelve -- or younger, with an OK from ThePope. It was a routine way for a family to protect its assets, and convents liked to accept postulants from rich families, as they brought substantial dowries with them.[[/note]] Or she may simply have been enrolled in the convent school. At eleven she had her first communion -- and died minutes later. [[UsefulNotes/ThePope Pope Francis]] says "not like Bl. Imelda" for "not a saint or perfect".

* Betty Ross Banner did this during Peter David's run on ''TheIncredibleHulk.''

* Betty Ross banner did this during Peter David's run on ''TheIncredibleHulk.''

* Of the three children who had visions of Mary at Fatima, Portugal, only Lucia survived into adulthood. (Francisco and Jacinta fell victim to the Spanish Flu, ages 9 and 10.) She was almost immediately popped into a school run by the Dorothean Sisters, and her name changed to Maria Dores, to keep pilgrims from hounding or venerating her. After graduation she chose to join the Dorotheans, later switching to the Discalced Carmelites, a very strict contemplative order, where she stayed until her death in TheNineties.
** The cultural trope of Marian visionaries joining a convent/monastery and/or dying young is so codified and ingrained in everyone's minds that visionaries often get criticised if they stay in the secular world or directly intervene in secular or religious matters. I.e, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanie_Calvat Melanie Calvat]], one of the visionaries of La Salette, got lambasted for either trying to intervene in the French state's relationship with the Church, or being used as an UnwittingPawn by conservative politicians.

* After the events of ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'', several of the [[HeelFaceTurn reformed]] [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Numbers]] (Sein, Otto, and Deed to be exact) end up joining [[SaintlyChurch the Saint Church]] as part of their sentence. Quite ironic given the fact that, when they were villains, their plans involved kidnapping [[CloneJesus the clone of the Sankt Kaiser]] ([[PalsWithJesus whom their now all friends with]]).

* In a ComicBook/FantasticFour story in an issue of ''ComicBook/WhatIf'', where all four members of the team have the Human Torch's powers, Susan Storm decides to become a nun when doing a superhero team mission they accidentally caused the death of a young child, causing the team to have so much guilt for a needless death they could have averted that three of its members forswore ever using their powers again, including Susan.

* In a ComicBook/FantasticFour story in an issue of ''What If?'', where all four members of the team have the Human Torch's powers, Susan Storm decides to become a nun when doing a superhero team mission they accidentally caused the death of a young child, causing the team to have so much guilt for a needless death they could have averted that three of its members forswore ever using their powers again, including Susan.