Ideas and Society in Early Modern Europe:
The Debate about Gender and Identity
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2.
3.
What are the seven ages of man and the three
ages of woman?
What can we discover by analyzing the female
life cycle according to early modern
categories?
What can we learn about women’s economic
role when we analyze it through the category
of gender? You will need to answer some
questions on your own: see slides 24, 26, 27,
28.
Man
1. Infancy
2. Childhood
3. The lover
4. The soldier
5. The justice
6. Old age
7. Extreme old age
Woman
1. Virgin
2. Wife
3. Widow
Sexual organs and activity
“male sexuality was the baseline for any perception
of human sexuality, and the female sex organs were
viewed as the male turned inside out or simply not
pushed out” (p. 60)
sexual intercourse as impure / sinful … but sexual
desires divinely willed
containment of sexual intercourse
Protestant esteem for marriage and sexual desire
common notion of “rampant female sexuality” (p.
62)
pornography: visual and verbal with religious and
political implications
Sexual crimes and deviance
fornication: pre-marital sex
as a stage towards marriage or as a result of rape
options for unmarried pregnant women
to bring a legal case against a man for rape in defence of
honour
to hide pregnancy
to induce an abortion: a capital offence in the Holy Roman
Empire as of 1532
to have the baby: stigma of unwed motherhood varies
leave the baby with a foundling hospital
to kill the baby: infanticide a capital offence
“More women were executed for infanticide in early
modern Europe than any other crime except witchcraft”
(p. 67)
Sexual crimes and deviance
midwives had to help enforce laws against infanticide
asylums for “fallen women”: similar to convents
“punishment and penitence” (p. 69) Louis XIV and the
Salpêtrière (1656): “hospital” for prostitutes,
fornicators, adultere
Etienne Jeaurat, Transport of the Prostitutes to the
Salpêtrière (1745)
Same-sex relations
words: homosexual (1869), lesbian (1730s), sodomy
a capital offence for women in Holy Roman Empire
(1532); not a criminal offence in England
gender inversion worse than female homoeroticism
“close relationships among women were probably
far more common than legal records would indicate”
(p. 73).
“romantic friendships” (p. 75) did not necessarily
involve genital contact
Marriage
“the clearest mark of social adulthood for both
women and men” (p. 80)
choice of spouse parents, family members
ideal husband, ideal wife (p. 76)
nuclear family household: northern and western
Europe: marriage in mid-twenties
complex family household: southern and eastern
Europe: marriage in late teens
marriage and law: divorce, establishment of
marriage
dowry (p. 79)
Marriage
age of marriage: rural / urban
more egalitarian for spouse of similar age
Women continued to identify with their birth family.
The emergence of the middle-class house wife.
Singlewomen
nuns
poor women: domestic servants, “spinsters”
legal worries about “masterless women”
Motherhood
nursing
wet nurses: poor; regulation of
the death of a husband
poverty
opportunities
control of families
control of inheritance
control of business
likelihood of remarriage: widowers / widows;
young widows / old widows
households of older women
questions of continuity (p. 96)
discontinuities (p. 97)
How is gender a useful category of historical
analysis when considering the female life
cycle?
Work Identity and Concepts of Work
Women’s Work in the Countryside
Mining and Domestic Industry
Women’s Work in Towns and Cities
Craft guilds
questions for you to answer in preparation for class
questions for you to answer in preparation for class
Investment, Managing, and Purchasing
male / female work rhythms: age, class,
training (for men); biology (for women)
professionalization: a vehicle for male
dominance and exclusion of women
the concept of vocation (wife and mother) as a
limitation for women
relegation of women’s activity to “domestic
work” and “housekeeping”
skilled vs. unskilled labour: economic
consequences, mechanization
“Whatever its sources, the gendered notion of work
meant that women’s work was always valued less
and generally paid less than men’s” (p. 105)
“All economies need both structure and flexibility,
and during the early modern period, these qualities
became increasingly gender-identified: male labour
provided the structure, so that it was regulated, tied
to a training process, and lifelong; female labour
provided the flexibility, so that it was
discontinuous, alternately encouraged or
suppressed, not linked to formal training, and
generally badly paid. Women’s work was thus both
marginal and irreplaceable” (p. 105)
gendered division of agricultural labour:
physical strength, child care;
exceptions: work in vineyards, silk growing
“Whatever their source, gender divisions
meant that the proper functioning of a rural
household required at least one adult male and
one adult female” (p. 106).
Women’s agricultural labour could be
physically taxing.
seventeenth century: “feminization of
agriculture” (p. 106)
new crops: labour-intensive
care for animals
increasing demand for women’s labour
gendered division of labour in the rural household
other economic activity
selling agricultural produce / small goods at
markets
selling labour in rural areas
domestic service in rural households
migration to cities
women‘s labour is “ancillary” (p. 110) in
mining
proto-industrialization = domestic / cottage
industry = putting-out system: an early form of
capitalist enterprise
increase in economic value of labour
Employment of entire households tended to break
down gendered divisions in labour
employment of individual women as seasonal
labourers: Women’s income is supplemental /
secondary; women are economically inferior to their
husbands.
Occupation
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2.
3.
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6.
Significance
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2.
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forms of economic production in cities organized
around a specific craft, e.g. shoe-making
hierarchy: apprentice, journeyman, master
Answer these questions on the following slides:
Why did for the most part women have only an
informal role to play in craft guilds?
Can you name two professional associations in which
women were not excluded and played a decisive role?
Why were women able to exercise these occupations?
Why were women as a rule excluded from craft
guilds? Can you come up with four reasons?
Hint: You will find only one association in the section on craft
guilds. The other is mentioned elsewhere in the chapter.
Reason 1:
Reason 2:
Reason 3:
Reason 4:
women as investors
women as directors of
companies
Glückel of Hameln
restrictions:
money lending
access to land owing to
inheritance customs
bequests of property (except
for widows and unmarried
women)
donations to religious
institutions
reality of economic activity vs. legal
prescriptions
women and consumption
continuities in economic sector
but contribution to the economy
“industrious revolution”
