Medieval Childhood

     The families of Pre-Industrial Europe varied greatly depending upon the region, such as the Northwest. Such variables were the age men and women married, the age in which the teens moved away from the house to work, and also the family structure and size. In Northwestern Europe, the teens moved away from their homes at the ripe and young age of 13 years old. In order to find a place to live, the teens would have to work as a servant in a household until they were able to marry and start a household. The teens were usually not able to start their own family until the age of 24 years old. Another regional trait was the size of the families themselves. The families normally consisted of only 5-6 members, as the families were nuclear structured, not the extended-family type structure. An exception to this was the few wealthy families, which could grow beyond the 5-6 member family average. Another unique trait of Northwestern families was the integral role the servants played in everyday life. The servants were treated as part of the family, and would often eat with the family, as well as travel anywhere the family went. All of these characteristics of Northwestern European families contributed to their early success.

A young woman would marry a man who was usually significantly older than she was. After marriage, women were stuck in a home where the male was the head of the household and made all of the decisions.11 Marital choice did not exist; at least not for women. Woman were forced to marry men that they barely knew, thus even the most intimate details of their lives were decided not by them, but by others. Love was usually not a factor in the marriage equation. Wife-beating was also allowed and men sometimes imprisoned, starved, and humiliated their wives.12

Women had great social pressure on them to marry. Young girls were often married by the age of 13 or 14 . It was socially unacceptable if women were not married by the age of 25 . Marriage was mostly for economic benefits, not romantic situations. A wedding, rather than a religious ceremony, was a civil contract that set the responsibilities and duties of husband and wife . Once married, they legally became one with their husbands. Married women had no control of their earnings, inheritance, property, and also could not appear in court as a witness nor vote . Their husbands, therefore, were responsible for all aspects of their wife including discipline .

A woman in medieval times was not considered a person, but property. A woman would be forced to wear layers of drab clothing, the style determining their social class ranking. A woman of wealth would wear decadent gowns and women in poverty would wear plain spun dresses. Their goal in life was to find a husband, to give in to his whims and be the epitome of submission. Sometimes, peasant girls would be forced to take up a trade prior to marriage. After the marriage, she was forced to give up this trade, the skill she possessed, and either maintain the lifestyle as a housewife, or help her husband with his trade. In regards to whom a woman married, there was little to no choice in the matter. Often, girls were married to strange men, men they

Women and their families often grew up in rural areas, making most of their money and living from the land they would tend, and the crops they grew (bl.uk). Most women were neither nuns or housewives, but worked. “Women’s gender…excluded them from the learned professions of scholarship, medicine, and law. A women rarely considered herself as just a wife (“The Western Heritage” p. 218). Women held a lot of traditional roles and jobs in medieval times. Women were expected to be in charge of making all of the food for the whole family. Men rarely cooked, as this was the job of the women. Also, women were expected to be the primary caretakers of the children, as the men were often working in the fields, and

Typically during this time people did not marry young because they could not yet economically support themselves.

"Upon marriage, woman became the legal wards of their husbands, as they previously had been of their fathers while still unmarried" (Martin, 68). It was common for a father to sell his young daughter into marriage and the young women had no say in her preference of her suitors (Mahaffy, 48). This was done while the girl was in her young teens while the groom was ten to fifteen years older (Martin, WEB2). As the father, or guardian, gave the young girl away he would repeat the phrase that expressed the primary aim of marriage: "I give you this women for the plowing [procreation] of legitimate children" (Martin, WEB2). The woman’s role was primarily in the home. "Households thus depended on women, whose wok permitted the family to economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis" (Martin, WEB2).

Females were allowed to marry at 12, while males were allowed to marry at 14 ("Elizabethan Wedding Customs” 1).

Living in the medieval time period was not as glamorous as it is often portrayed; peasants and serfs led hard lives, however, kings, lords, and knights lived lavishly and at the expense of those under them. In this paper you will read about all of these lifestyles, as well as the castles in which these lords and kings lived in. Mainly castle designs, fortifications, and siege tactics will be revealed to you; yet there are several sections, dealing with the lifestyles of the above mentioned, leading up to that.

Throughout the history of childhood development poor social and economic conditions contributed to the many hardships and poor treatment of children. During the early Middle Ages the "paternalist" family concept evolved and the father had authority and control over family matters including the welfare and safety of his wife and children. Discipline was severe, young children both poor and wealthy were subjected to strict rules and regulations and often beaten if disobedient. Children took on the responsibilities of adults at an early age, sharing in the work of siblings and parents. Girls from affluent families were educated at home and married in their teens. Some males were educated at a monastery and others became apprentices to

The Christian religions rise to supremacy in the middle ages was the result of several factors. Christians had long been persecuted by the Roman Empire because the Romans felt that Christianity challenged and offended the Greco-Roman Gods and the Christians were prone to revolt against Roman rule. Christianity survived because it had many teachings that appealed to the downtrodden in Roman society, these teachings being that even though they were suffering they would gain equality and possibly superiority in the next life, Christianity gave them hope.

Soon after a girl hits puberty, she is considered ready for marriage. Marriages were almost always arranged by the families of the bride and

The economics of marriage was not the only pressure on children to marry where their parents directed. Sixteenth-century children, and girls in particular, were very much brought up to obey, and to believe that it was their duty to their parents… to marry the person chosen for them. It would have taken a very strong-minded girl indeed to have refused to follow her parents’ wishes. Girls who did refuse the partner offered could find themselves bullied by their parents. (3)

was delayed since they couldn’t afford it. Women married young to ensure their heirs around the age of 16 to 20. For women, marriage was the clearest mark for social hood. In many marriages, it involved the women, her parents, kin, and community (Wiesner 72.) According to Joan Kelly, a woman would have a gift, such as money or farm animals, that went to her future husband. On a woman’s wedding day, her father would parade her through her new home. If a woman were an orphan, she could choose her own husband. According to Merry Wiesner, there wasn’t much concern for romantic love. Instead, it was more about economic security, social prestige, and the hope

From a young age, women in the early 1900s were raised into becoming wives and mothers. They were expected to marry a man while she was still young and pretty, be dependent on him, and perform the duties such as the cooking and cleaning around the home. In tradition, girls were raised to know that they were expected to marry as soon as she was old enough, from the example of their own mother. It was seen as disgraceful for them to miss their