The Family Life Of A Woman In The Classical, Medieval And Early Modern Periods

6 Pages 1379 Words

The Family Life of a Woman in the Classical, Medieval and Early Modern Periods

In the classical, medieval, and early modern periods a women’s identity revolved primarily around her family and her role as a daughter, wife and mother. Women were continually instructed that their social worth resided above all else in their practice of these roles which led to the exclusion of almost any other role. This paper discusses these roles of women throughout history, highlighting their separate and inferior status in a male-oriented society. It outlines the transformation of these roles from the classical, medieval, and the early modern periods.
As young girls, women were taught that the society required the spheres of men and women to remain distinct; the man was more suited to labor outside of the family sphere, the woman, within. In many ways, this tradition gave to women dominion over the spiritual heart of both house and family. As young girls they were taught to stay home and help their mothers with the housework. Xenophon, an Athenian aristocrat who was very interested in Spartan life, mentions in “The Spartan Constitution” that with the exception of Spartan girls, young girls in other Greek states were brought up in a way that would prepare them to become mothers. He writes, “In other states the girls who are destined to become mothers are brought up in the approved fashion” (Xenophon 49). Lynn Hunt describes in his book, The Making of the West: People and Cultures, that in

the household, the father held an awareness of power over his children. He states “by law the father possessed the patria potestas (power of the father) over his children” (Hunt et al. 161). Authorities such as this enabled fathers to make many decisions for their children, especially their daughters. Fathers during the Renaissance often sent their daughters to a convent to become nuns. This was because he was responsible for providi...