Gender in the Early Modern Period
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 22-05-18 12:11
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- Gender in the Early Modern Period (according to Bernard Capp, other historians in bold)
- Mish on Long Meg of Westminster
- doughty young woman who dressed as a man, fought and overcame male adversaries
- Performed heroic feats in Henry VIII's wars against France
- example of how defying gender roles in this period often were impermanent
- Meg married and vowed to be respectful and obedient wife
- Gender constituted one of key foundations of European order
- Shaped almost every sphere (social, economic, political, religious)
- Despite some changes, fundamental assumptions underpinning educated and popular thinking regarding women, survived intact
- Ideas reaching back to classical and biblical times
- influenced relationships within family
- Ideas reaching back to classical and biblical times
- Family
- Seen as loving partnership
- Husband had absolute, unquestionable supremacy
- Social unit best equipped to raise children and transmit social values to next generation
- Unstable (through death, not divorce)
- Frequently contained members biologically unrelated to either parent
- Axiom throughout Europe that two sexes possessed very different characteristics
- Male superior
- Basis
- Christian religion was essentially male-orientated
- Like Judaic tradition it had its roots in
- God created Adam first, Eve was companion and 'helpmeet'
- Eve's weakness in face of temptation had triggered man's fall and expulsion from Garden of Eden
- New Testament reinforced message
- Jesus choosing male disciples and St Paul preaching duty of obedience of women
- Protestant Reformation further strengthened religion's male character by rejecting cult of saints and of the Virgin Mary
- Religious teaching was supported by medical science stretching back to Greeks
- Aristotle had taught women were imperfect men
- For centuries, physicians explained human body was composed of four 'humours':
- Balance found in women (primarily cold and moist) made them intellectually, morally and physically weaker
- According to Laqeuer
- Some physicians believed there was only a single sex
- humoral balance alone responsible for creating male and female sexual identities
- should balance be reversed a man might turn into a woman (or vice versa, should balance be reversed)
- Such fears may have contributed to nervousness about gender and alarm whenever women imitated male dress or men behaved effeminately
- should balance be reversed a man might turn into a woman (or vice versa, should balance be reversed)
- humoral balance alone responsible for creating male and female sexual identities
- Some physicians believed there was only a single sex
- Christian religion was essentially male-orientated
- Work
- Manual work
- Physical strength remained essential requirement in many occupations, including agriculture
- Gave men obvious advantage
- Though manual work made many women physically strong
- offset by repeated pregnancies and care of small children
- Physical strength remained essential requirement in many occupations, including agriculture
- Manual work
- Custom
- Gender-based assumptions had led to many areas to exclusion from:
- Education
- Many trades and professions
- Most people naturally absorbed ideas and values of society in which they had grown up
- Strong-minded individuals tempted to challenge them could not point to any place or time when things had been different
- Gender-based assumptions had led to many areas to exclusion from:
- Patriarchal
- Description of early modern European society
- Male authority underpinned within family and in society at large by web of laws, regulations and custom
- Regional variations
- Roman Law, religion and custom combined to limit women's freedom and rights far more severely in Southern Europe than in the north
- Foreign visitors sometimes described England (with considerable exaggeration) as a paradise for women
- No one spoke in such terms of Spain or Italy
- where middle- and upper-class women were largely confined to home
- No one spoke in such terms of Spain or Italy
- Mish on Long Meg of Westminster
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