Women Under Restraint: Women's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England

Résumé du document

Religious beliefs were a fundamental part of life in early modern England; virtually everyone believed in a Christian God. The rise of the printing press allowed a new translation of the Bible, the Authorized King James Version of 1611 to fertilize households with biblical knowledge. The Bible was deemed the Word of God, the truth which provided an answer for every single issue. As a result, seventeenth-century patriarchal society drew on religious ideology to reinforce and substantiate women's submission. Thus, the Bible tremendously influenced the way women were considered. Women's spiritual, mental and physical worlds were limited and regulated. The preconceptions that society had about women's status directly affected their daily lives, as demonstrated in the religious, medical, literary, legal and political fields. Grandmother Eve, the embodiment of sin, was the first symbol used to justify women's subordination. Eve brought about the fall of all mankind; therefore, women represented a perpetual danger, since they were constantly tormented by their weak and corrupted nature. Conventional religious movements, belonging to Protestantism and Puritanism, agreed that women were the weaker sex and needed to be under masculine control.

Extraits

[...] The establishment of Protestantism led to a manifest reduction in the variety of women's potential public activities. Until the dissolution of the monasteries and nunneries from 1536 onwards, both men and women had been able to join religious orders. The abolition of monasteries and nunneries forced women, who wanted to become nuns, to travel abroad.[33] Protestantism prevented women from becoming priests, ministers or theologians, though public attendance at church services was compulsory both for men and women of all ranks. [...]

[...] Church teachings dealt with personal matters such as the sexual relationship between husbands and wives. Protestants tried to impose rules for sexual behaviour. They rejected virginity and especially celibacy, since it thwarted the contemporary notions of hierarchy. Because celibacy was considered unnatural, unmarried women and spinsters were perceived as being outside the conventional hierarchies of family or household. Having no special roles they were thus anomalies in the patriarchal order, threatening male domination. This was one of the main reasons why such women were often singled out as targets for accusations of witchcraft. [...]

[...] 283-90, both quoted in Hill, p Turner, p Whately, Prototypes, pp. 33-34 quoted in Hill, p These lines were part of a hymn a Wife' in Wither's Hallelujah, p quoted in Hill, p The Oxford Guide to People and Places of the Bible, p J. Milton, Paradise Lost, Longman, London ix Milton's words in Paradise Lost x Tim. 2:14-15. Irwin, p Colossians 4:18. 1 Corinthians 15: 34-35. ETP, p Idem, p P. Crawford, Women and Religion in England, p ETP, p F. [...]

[...] Puritans could worship both at home and in the church: ever we would have the church of God to continue among us ( . ) we must bring it into our households, and nourish it in our families."[46] On these grounds, the laws of God and the spiritual welfare of the community were in the hands of the preacher, and consequently, in Puritan households, these responsibilities were the father's. This increased the authority of the paterfamilias who attempted to impose a strict discipline (he required household fasts and frequent prayer- meetings) on every household member and even over his servants.[47] Keepers of the faith under their roofs and under God, seventeenth-century Puritan masters thus disposed of a great authority over their wives and daughters: "God chargeth the master of the family with all in the family ( . [...]

[...] Greaves, Triumph over Silence, Women in Protestant History, Greenwood Press, London p A. Laurence, Women in England 1500-1760, Phoenix Giant, London p Idem, p Crawford, p p Galatians 3:28. The Reformation of Manners. Crawford, p Gen. 2:18. ETP, p Greaves, Triumph over Silence, p Peter Lake, 'Feminine Piety and Personal Potency: the Emancipation of Mrs Jane Radcliffe', The Seventeenth Century II pp. 147-9 quoted in A. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, 1500-1800, Yale University Press, New Haven p ETP, p J. [...]