gender Flashcards
who wrote about gender relations in the early modern world?
Laura Gowing
what was Norbert Elias’s narrative of the civilising process?
the renaissance saw an internalising of social norm - rules on spitting, nose blowing and farting became more demanding - became a mechanism of self-control
what was reflected in bodily styles that broke traditions?
political and religious clashes reflected in how people composed themselves - for example quakers developed own style of speech, walking and dress - they would decline to lift hats or use conventional marks of respect)
what do boys do at the age of seven?
they ‘breech’ - which is when they start dressing in more gender conformative dress - they start to wear trousers – elites would celebrate this
what is an example of elites celebrating the ‘breech(ing)’ of boys?
Frank North’s Grandmother supervised his transition into breeches and long coats and notes his excitement for his absent farther - also records how the local minister was ‘put to blush’ at the sight of the young boy
what were women’s clothes dependent on?
marital status
what was a symbol of being a wife and modest?
a coif over the hair
what testifies to the power of dress to signify gender and class?
diaries + letters + paintings - e.g., favour at James I’d court was those with the best cut coats and stiffest ruffs
what did early attempts to historicise the emotional tenor of family life draw from?
mortality rates - this fitted the theory of emotional detachment with the narrative of economic individualism and the self
what did the cultural impact of the reformation and early stages of capitalism provide the context for?
the transition from a collective society - large hierarchically organises family units to small nuclear households based on affective bonds and companionable bonds
what did historian Lawrence stone state?
transition from 1400-1800 - from hierarchical extended families to small nuclear ones with companionable marriage started with the elites and then worked its way down - BUT we mostly only have evidence from elites as they were the social class with the highest levels of literacy
what was the average house size?
four to five people - with only one generation living in the house
what was the distinguishing feature of an early modern family?
the ubiquity of service
in areas of high, mortality was the average span of a marriage?
ten years
what was the average span of a marriage?
twenty years - with half of women unmarried at any one time in the 17th C. - and a 1/5 of them never marrying
between 1500-1700, what was the average age for marriage in men and then in women?
men - 29-27
women 24-26
what did the European reformation launch, in terms of marriage?
launched a reforming effort at the nature and understanding of marriage - rejecting medieval monastic idealisations of celibacy in favour of a practical solution which stressed marriage as another route to salvation
post-ref., what was marriage mainly seen as?
a secular contract - it was dissoluble in dire circumstances
what did the English not do as much as continental protestants?
reform marriage law
what was made a capital offence?
bigamy
what was a legacy of the reformation’s response to marriage?
printed marital advice
what is an example of printed marital advice?
Robert Clever and John Dod’s exhaustive, A Godly Form of Household Government
what was wrong with prescriptive literature?
it was contradictory/unrealistic - for example, in the Homily on Matrimony, it describes domestic violence as both unacceptable and sometimes unavoidable
what were marriages expected to end in?
death - separations occurred but they were rare and against marital law - the diocese of London and middlesex recorded less that ten divorces a year during the 17th century
what did common law allow husbands to do?
beat their wives but not ‘outrageously’ or ‘violently’ - women were granted a dissolution if the court believed that her life was in danger - so anything else was not acceptable - just frowned upon
what were/are social bonds built on?
trust
what did/does trust derive from?
reputation
what was honour for working people based on?
gendered morals
what did women suffer from and what did it cause them to do?
a peculiar vulnerability to dishonour - made them ready to attack misconduct and respond to discrediting words
what did the legal system give ample support for?
culture of honour - women would fight over insults like ‘whore’, ‘bawd’, ‘quean’, and men would fight over insults like ‘whoremaster’ and ‘cuckhold’
what does Keith Thomas - welsh historian- believe causes the double standard between men and women?
biology - women become pregnant - not men - this is why women are brandished whores and blamed whilst men only concern themselves with the paternity of the children
what happened, due to the expanding economy and the increase in fierce competition for resources?
social credit aligned with financial credit - for example, William Stout, a shopkeeper from Lancaster writes a lot about the credit of his contemporaries and his employer - making connections between their wealth and their quakerism
