Woman Roles in the Early Years

   

In order to best describe the roles of women during the Middle Ages we must define their social class. The vast number of women during this time period were primarily confined to their homes being domestic house wives and caretakers. Woman are sought to be inferior to a man, and subservient as well. They were also thought to be weaker, less intelligent and not fit to perform the duties that men could perform. The noble woman in the middle ages had leisure time available to develop skills in drawing and music. The poorer woman didn’t possess these same opportunities, which they only could spend time in the home, that included tidiness and cleanliness.  Most roles that woman could be taught was inside the church. Some scholars had demonstrated significant differences in men’s and women’s rights to possess and inherit property, in their duties to pay homage and taxes, their civil and legal rights, and rights to present evidence or serve as judges and priest. (Chadwick, 2007). This confusion came from the powerful social standing of women during these times. Some woman had continued to be confined to their homes and dependent on their husbands while others who had a higher social class had more things in common with men.

During this period most woman had access to education through the church but was prohibited from teaching. This was a rule that was handing down by St. Paul. “A woman must be a learner, listening quietly and with due submission”. (Chadwick, 2007). “St. Paul stated as per text “I don’t permit a woman to be a teacher, nor must a woman domineer over a man; she should be quiet.” (Chadwick, 2007).  In reading this quote I feel as though woman still are meant to be silent, learn but don’t dare teach anything other than being a good servant, a wife, and caretaker. In the middle Ages woman who didn’t serve in the church as nuns couldn’t do the following things such as having the opportunity of receiving an education. Most woman during this time period were also engaged by the age of 12 and married by 15. This was the typical way of life for most woman. If a girl was engaged and decided to marry another man she would be punish with death. They were required to be faithful to their husband and could be punished if they committed adultery. A wife could divorce her husband only if he was a pederast or had forced her to have sex with another man or couldn’t perform his sexual duties. The man had more right to divorce his wife if she couldn’t bear children or return her dowry. The ruling were more punitive for a woman than a man. Women couldn’t be taught to become educated because they fear that it will interfere with then being a good wife and mother. It was in woman’s best interest to obey the ruling of her husband or she could be beaten without him having any consequences. Woman were able to work in family ran business but all the benefits went to her male counterparts, her husband, father or brother. (Girls, 1998)

Christine De Pizan spoke about The Introduction to the City of Ladies, which discussed how she’s challenged the information that was presented about woman by men. She crafted many arguments against the sexist scholars who depicted woman, and left out some important facts that these woman were brave, strong and the most virtuous woman in history. In the city of ladies it was thee beautiful woman who personified with “Reason, Rectitude and Justice and it describes how the city of ladies was to be built with the heroines from the bible” (Girls, 1998). Later on in her career she produced many poems and educated many woman. One of her last works while living in exile was Joan of Arc, which was about a young girl from Orleans, France. She was resilient in her fight to rally for woman hood, she crossed dressed as a knight to fight in the army. As stated in the book Christine looked at Joan as her personal savior as well as the savior for France. This was an important change in history that woman started to fight through empowerment of becoming educated and teaching other woman.

During the era of the Renaissance woman roles started to changed a little on the artistic level. In the book written by the Guerrilla Girls it states that they didn’t want to say anything bad about the “geniuses of the Italian Renaissance” which were Michelangelo Leonardo, Raphael, and Caravaggio, but they wanted to face the reality that these men contributed to the hardship of woman artist. The information and imagery that was presented in this era was comprised of heroic “white male” artist followed by another. The majority of this era woman only could be artist if they came from a family of male artist. The role they played was only to provide assistance when needed. It was one woman that was an exception to this was Sofonisba Anguissola which was born to a nobleman who felt that woman should be educated. He sent one of her drawings to Michelangelo and he was enthuse by her talent. Most of the other woman such as Lavinia Fontana was allowed to marry another painter and worked in her fathers studio but the agreement was to give all her earning to him. This era made it hard for woman but the freedom came for woman who moved to Bologna which allowed them to enter into their University. Woman started to moved forward with their artist interest.

Chadwick, W (2007) . Women, Art, and Society.  New York : Thames & Hudson Inc. 4th edition.
Girls, G (1998). Bedside Companion To The History of Western Art. New York: Penguin Books Ltd.