Women in the 18th century the title sounds very alluring, but is it relevant nowadays? Why would be people interested in such a theme? Before arguing the importance of it, I would like to specify that my diploma paper is going to be one of compilation, i. e. the description of the critical vision which I found connected to my subject.
What was women s experience of life and the world in the 18-th century in England? Historians believed they knew a great deal about men s lives. But their knowledge of ordinary women, of the majority of the female population, was relatively limited. While the 1970 s had seen great strides in studies of medieval and 19th century English women, research into the intervening centuries seemed to lay behind, leaving the 16th and 17th centuries as the neglected Dark Ages of women s history.
There were all the myriad circumstances in which individual women might find themselves, variables of age, social rank, matrimonial, familial and sexual status and geographical locale. It is necessary to add personal and contingent factors, such as the doctrinal convictions which united or separated women along religious and political lines.
Social historians had identified the elements of popular culture for the male half of the population.
Did ordinary women have a culture of their own, or were they more onlookers or passive sharers in male popular culture?
Why was women s experience of marriage so similar across the class spectrum, when it had been predicted that structural factors related to social and economic rank would play more a role in creating disparate patterns? An obsession with the control of female sexuality, with women s dependent and submissive self-presentation as the outward sign of sexual subjection, also seemed to crop up in what is regarded as alien contexts.
My diploma paper contains five chapters. The first chapter is about woman s social image from the Middle Ages to the Classical period.
In consists of 5 subchapters. The first one: Defining terms and concepts works as an introduction to the chapter. The second one: -the Religious Teachings; the third subchapter is about law connected with marital status, marriage, separation and child custody and also crimes made by and against women.
Man and wife was one person according to the law, and that person was the husband.
A wife could make no legal contract, except concerning her clothing and food, but her husband could sell her clothes. There was no legal way to end a marriage apart from a separation, which did not allow either party to remarry.
Witchcraft was largely understood as a woman s crime. As about the crimes against women, the most serious was rape. The fourth subchapter is about the women s stereotypes. Virginity was prized in young women, but after a woman passed the usual age of marriage she was an object of suspicion. The term old maid was not very positive and desired by women.
The wife had two stereotypes: the archetype of the good woman ...
SARA MENDELSON, PATRICIA CRAWFORD - "WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND 1550 - 1720" - OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC. , NEW YORK, 1998
P. CROWFORD - "WOMEN IN ENGLISH SOCIETY 1500 - 1800" - OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS INC. , NEW YORK, 1985
S. BRUMWELL, A. SPECK - "CASSELLS COMPANION TO EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BRITAIN" - UNITED KIGDOM, CASSELL SI CO, 2001
J. RICHETTI - "THE ENGLISH NOVEL IN HISTORY 1700 - 1780" - ROUTLEDGE, LONDON AND NEW YORK, 1999
W. ROBERTS - "JANE AUSTEN AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, ATLONE, LONDON AND ANTLANTIC HIGHLANDS" - NEW YORK, 1995
P. S. JOURN - "THE FEMININE TRADITION IN ENGLISH FICTION" - INSTITUTUL EUROPEAN, IASI, 1999
J. GOODY - "FAMILIA EUROPEANA. O INCERCARE DE ANTROPOLOGIE ISTORICA" - POLIROM, IASI, 2003
G. BOCK - "FEMEIA IN ISTORIA EUROPEI. DIN EVUL MEDIU PANA IN ZILELE NOASTRE" - POLIROM, IASI, 2002
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