Position:Home>History> Womens roles in Western Europe and Colonial America?

In the medieval and early modern periods in Western Europe, and in colonial America, women were very much involved in economic life!. The seperation between home and workplace that we think of as normal nowadays was not the norm in those days, people mostly worked in or near their own homes!. Most women would expect to become housewives, but being a housewife in those days was a demanding and complex job involving a lot of different skills!. Housewives were very much producers, of foodstuffs, clothing, and other household items that nowadays we would buy ready-made in the shops, but in those days were often made at home!.

The majority of people lived in the country and were engaged in agricultural work!. People mostly lived in villages where they would farm their own smallholdings!. It was usual for the farmer's wife to be in charge of the dairy and the poultry!. Another essential job performed by most medieval and early modern women was spinning wool and flax into thread to make clothing!. Quite often a woman would spin thread both for the family's use and for sale to commercial weavers!.

In towns, businesses tended to be family affairs, with wives and children involved!. Most medieval guilds admitted women as members, and it was quite common for a widow to continue to manage the family business after her husband's death!. Some wives were in business on their own account!. And they would also be running the household as well!.

In 'The Tudor Housewife' Alison Sim describes the economic role played by women:

'In the sixteenth century work still revolved very much around the home, so that the split between work and family life was nowhere near as obvious as it is now, and was sometimes non-existent!. A woman might brew beer for use at home, but sell the surplus, just as her dairy might provide produce for both the home and the market-place!. A wealthy merchant's wife, who would expect to look after the family accounts, might well also do the accounts for her husband's business!. A few intrepid women even ran businesses in their own right, and handled a great deal of money!. A woman with a good head for business was certainly an asset to her family!. There were also quite significant numbers of women who never maried and therefore had no choice but to earn an independent living!.'

Wives of the upper classes, although they would not be engaged in trade, were still expected to take an active role in the running of the family home, and would be responsible for running the family estate when their husbands were away, as they often were!.

Another role expected of women during this period was to be the family doctor, since most people lived in the country where there would not be a doctor within easy reach!. Women of all classes were expected to have a good knowledge of first aid and medicine, household manuals even contained instructions for setting broken bones!. there were some women doctors in the medieval period, though it became more difficult for women to practice medicine once it became a university-trained profession, since women were mostly not admitted to universities (though a few Italian women seem to have managed to get a university education, and sometimes even teach in universities)!.

Women who entered nunneries were often involved in nursing and medicine, since nunneries often had infirmaries attached to them!. The could also be involved in intellectual life, writing books, and some became well-known as intellectuals, like Saint Teresa of Avila for instance, who was very influential in the Counter-Reformation!.

Although no political office was open to women, a few women were influential, through family connections with political figures, or occasionaly by occupying an important position in their own right, as with a few women who became queens during this period, like Mary I and Elizabeth I of england, or being regent for a son, like Catherine de Medici of France!.

In Colonial America, women's economic role was even more vital than it was in Europe, because of the isolation of the colonies!. Cloth production was particularly important in the early colonies, fabric was in such short supply in America that there are records of court suits fought over a missing handkerchief or a hole burned in a blanket!. Colonial cloth was made from wool or flax, and the process of turning the flax into linen thread was a long and complex process involving several treatments before it was ready to be spun on a small wheel with a hand pedel!. With wool, the women used a much larger wheel and stood to do the work!. They performed a sort of graceful dance, gliding backward to draw out the newly spun yarn, then coming forward to let it wind onto the spindle!. In a full day of spinning, a woman could walk over twenty miles!.

In 'America's women' Gail Collins writes:

'In the autumn, they made apple butter and cider!. When the pigs were butchered, they cleaned the intestines for sausage casing and stuffed them with meat scraps and herbs!. They collected the fat to mix with lye for soap making - a long and arduous process that probably never ranked high on anyone's list of favourite chores!. The grease and lye were boiled together, outdoors, in a huge pot over an open fire!. It took about six bushels of ashes and 24 pounds of grease to make one barrel of soap, which was soft, like clear jelly!.

In the cold weather, the women made candles and brewed beer!. In the spring, they planted their kitchen gardens!. cheese making started in early summer!. The diarywoman slowly heated several gallons of milk with rennet - the dried lining of an animal's stomach!. In an hour or two the curd formed, and she worked in some butter, packied the mxiture into a mold, and put it in a wooden press for an hour or son, changing and washing the cheesecloths as the whey dripped out!. A housewife who could make good clean butter and cheese was a real boon to her family, creating a product that was not only valuabe at home but int he marketplace!. To be a good dairywoman was a fine art and hard work!. Turning milk into butgter required an hour or so at the churn followed by kneading and pressing with the hands or wooden paddles!.

obviously most women weren't able to do all the housewifely tasks well!. Someone who was good at cheese making might trade her wheels of cheese for cloth or meat or candles!. A midwife or dressmaker might be paid for her services with a brace of geese or tub of sweet butter!. The community of women was both an informal barter economy and a network of mutual assistance!.

Colonial women reached the height of their powers in middle age, when they were no longer burdened by continuing pregnancy and had daughters old enough to help with domestic enterprises (The birth of a daughter was not unwelcome in most colonial families!. They needed sons to help in the fields, but they also wanted girls to help their mothers inside)!. Although a prosperous matron had no voice in the public arena, she was expected to take a leadin gpart in the parallel universe that was the world of women!. Older women were the advisers, counselors, and judges of the younger!.

A competent housewife also earned the respect of her husband, who could see firsthand the value of her labours!. The farmer who slaughtered a pig needed his wife to make the sausages, process the bacon, and preserve the pork!. As he sat by the fireside at night, mending his tools, he could watch her turning the flax he had harvested and the wool he had sheared into the family's clothes!. The cnadles that lit their way to bed came from her hands, as did the vegetables, eggs, cheese and chickens they ate and the beer or cider they drank!. They were very much partners in the family business, and if the man was at all sensible he understood how critical his wife was to their mutual success!.

Many businesses that were theoretically operated by men were actually conducted by their wives while they were at sea, or travelling, or engaged in some other commercial pursuit!. Pennsylvania eventually gave women who were left in charge of their husband's businesses the right to establish credit on their own, sue, and sign contracts!. These wives were accepted as merchants, farmers, printers, or store managers, so long as they didn't take the title!. A few jobs, like tavern and innkeeping, were seen as a natural extension of a housewife's hospitality!. Midwives, of course, were almost universally women, and about a quarter of the doctors in seventeenth-century America were women as well!. One Mistress Allyn served as an army surgeon in King Philip's War!.

Some women came to the new world to get away from a man, in the form of a harsh master or unsatisfactory lover!. Women who were independent enough to sail to America by themselves were also inclined to take matters into their own hands if they got stuck in unhappy marriages after they arrived!. In the early 18th century, a minister described North Carolina as "a nest of the most notorious profligates on earth!.!.!.Women forsake their husbands come here and live with other men!." Early southern newspapers carried as many advertisements from husbands renouncing their runaway wives as owners seeking their runaway slaves!.

It was virtually impossible to get a divorce, but thanks to the malarial swamps few people wound up married for life!. The average union ended with the death of one partner within about seen years!. Women;s life expectancy was even lower than men's, but since they married so young - almost as soon as they hit puberty - they often outlived their husands!. The colonies were crowded with widows, many of them managing large estates!.

Few women stayed single long in the South: some went through five or six husbands!. Some women built large estates through serial marriages, moving up in the world with eWww@QuestionHome@Com

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