Women's Rights In The 16th Century

Women in the mid-1600s to mid-1700s underwent pivotal changes. While these changes would alter their roles in the colonies, certain aspects of their responsibilities remained the same.

In the nineteenth century, the legal rights of women and men were highly affected by gender and race, both positively and negatively. In the book, “Kingdom of Matthias,” by Paul Johnson and Simon Wilentz, they describe the life of two females, Isabella Van Wagenen and Isabella Matthews Laisdell which whom were affected by slavery and high influences of higher power from men. In the nineteenth century it was believed that males were to support the family by working and earning a wage as a husband was to provide for his wife and a father to provide for his children (Fahs 1/5). Also, during the nineteenth century women were seen to be working in homes and supporting their husbands by cleaning the home, raising the children, and cooking meals

Tempting as it is to forget the similarities, which were many, and stress the differences, the important characteristic of colonial women’s lives was alike, whatever the region: an adult woman’s status was everywhere determined by her marital state. In the Chesapeake no less than in New England, a woman was seen chiefly as an adjunct of her husband. Her social standing depended on her husband’s position in the colonial hierarchy: her primary role in family and community was as mistress of his household. Granted, the same was true of her English contemporaries. But two major differences separated the women of the Old World from those of the New. First, because of later marriage and longer widowhood, seventeenth-century English women most likely earned wages and lived independently of a paternal or marital household for a period of time at least as long as the terms of their marriages. In other words, they spent as much of their adult lives outside a marital household as inside one. Few American women had similar experiences: demographic constraints precluded long-term, independent lives in the colonies. Second. English women actively engaged in a market economy, exchanging goods and services with neighbors and working in shops alongside their husbands and fathers. The economic life of seventeenth-century English

Women were expected to do so much but at the same time so little. They had no power to do what they desire because men had all the power to control them. Society had an expectation of how women were supposed to act. For instance, Mary’s father cared for his sons education he wanted them to know how to read, write, and to do sums, as for his daughters he only cared that they knew how to read and sew. That is the basic that women were allowed to learn it was not important for them to know more since all they were going to work for is taking care of children. Here is an example, “…Gender roles within those families the reinforcement of gender ideals such as “helpmeet” and “notable housewife” by religious and civil authorities, and the simple

The seventeenth century was full of challenges; political, social, and economical. Across the board individuals struggled to live, although the conditions had much improved from the beginning of the colonies. Women in particular had a difficult time fitting into this patriarchal this society. Women were defined by men and were seen as an accessory to men. In the colony of New England women were learning how to have a silent voice, while still maintaining the proper role of time. The way women were seen by men, who ran the colony, and the way men thought, not only about women, but also about the world would sculpt the society and the

In the mid to late 1700's, the women of the United States of America had practically no rights. When they were married, the men represented the family, and the woman could not do anything without consulting the men. Women were expected to be housewives, to raise their children, and thinking of a job in a factory was a dream that was never thought impossible. But, as years passed, women such as Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Blackwell began to question why they were at home all day raising the children, and why they did not have jobs like the men. This happened between the years of 1776 and 1876, when the lives and status of Northern middle-class woman was changed forever. Women began to

Women of the seventeenth century had many reasons to accept the challenge of traversing to the New World. Life in England was not always easy, in fact, sometimes worse than in Virginia. Working conditions were appalling, with little pay and long hours. Many found work as servants to the

Imagine a life of not being able to have a mind of your own and having to base your actions on a man. That’s how it was for women during the 1500s. Women didn’t have a choice. Nowadays women are able to do as they please without the consent of a man. The play Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare women roles differ from current gender roles. In the 1500s the roles of women in society were very restricted. The play depicted women as weak and inferior. Women roles have greatly changed since the 1500s. The twentieth century played a major role for women.

The 19th century was a pinnacle time for women. Changing social conditions for women during this century combined with a new idea of equality, led to the birth of the woman suffrage movement. For the first time women started to receive more education and to take part in reform movements like abolition, sparking a realization that they could have some political influence. In the early 1800s, women were second-class citizens. A study done by Jone Johnson Lewis, a women's history expert, revealed that in early America, a woman's life tended to center around farm and family.

A woman had a busy domestic life. A woman played the role of wife, mother, teacher and manager. She had to please her husband, bear and raise children, educate her children, and manage all daily household activities. In the home, the woman was the jack of all trades. Part of the role of the female was to take raw goods, and turn them into useful items, such as food, candles, and clothing. Women had to clean, butcher and prepare all game brought home to the family. A woman was a household factory. Many items in the home were created by women. All clothing was made by spinning, weaving and stitching. All cloth was washed by hand without the aid of any machines. Candles were made at home by weaving a wick and pouring hot wax into a mold. A woman had to be educated enough to teach her sons and daughters the skills of life. Women spent the majority of their time performing daily tasks, but still were able to have leisure activities such as painting, embroidery, and charity work. Women had very few legal rights. In the majority of colonies, women had no legal control over their lives. It was the consensus among society that

Throughout the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, women faced challenges and oppression with social constructs and laws, which limited their abilities and contributions in society, forcibly placing them into the home. Shifting of ideals through differing political, social, and cultural events presented women with the opportunity to gain admittance into politics and speak out against their oppression. Women began to enter the public arena, speaking publicly on varying issues concerning their proper roles within society; With Increased awareness, women began to collaborate in efforts to reform women’s rights, specifically to call on educational reform. Women compared men’s work to the duties of domestic sphere to vocalize the need for education

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

The 18th century was a period of slow change for women’s rights in England. The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution were coterminous at this point in history and brought the new thoughts about women’s rights to England in the late 1700s. In the 1700s women were not as concerned with voting as they were with divorce, adultery, and child custody rights. However, as the population of single women grew throughout the 18th and 19th century the concern for more rights for women became prevalent (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). By 1851, 43 percent of women in England were single and began to campaign frequency and sometimes forcibly for their rights (Wolbrink, 4 Nov. 2011). Reformer

One big claim Virginia brings up and talks an extensive amount is the angelic yet malevolent spirit of the “Lady in the House.”In Virginia’s words the Lady of the House was, “ intensely sympathetic [...] immensely charming [...] utterly unselfish [...] excelled in the difficult arts of family life [...] [and] sacrificed herself daily” (2). Everything Virginia described about the Angel of the House was an allegorical view of the idealised household wife that permeated the minds of both men and women. Virginia deliberately used this perceived view of the typical woman to create an emotional response from the crowd of women showing that if they don’t push for equality between sexes, they too will be influenced and “possessed” by the Lady of the House. Virginia later adds that, “-in short, [the Lady of the House] was so constituted that she never had a mind or wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others” (2). These

“ The belief that women were inherently inferior in intelligence, strength, and character was so persuasive that for men like Knox, a woman ruler was almost a contradiction in terms” (“Documents for Chapters 5&6”). In the 16th century, women were looked upon as a gender that should stay in the house and work, not have power and rule over a country. Discussing the govern of Queens during the 16th century, such as Mary Tudor, Lady Jane Grey, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, allowed prejudices to be lessened but never completely be erased. No matter how these four notable ladies came into power, the accomplishments they overcame, achieved and wrote about proved to be great and substantial in making history as it is written today.