How did rising accusations of witchcraft in the second half of the sixteenth century relate to the role of women in society?
What will be an ideal response?
Answers will vary, but the rise in accusations reflected social upheavals and the desire for men in power to maintain political order. After 1550, a stereotype of the witch emerged. Witches were said to be cunning folk who sold their souls to the Devil. In their obscene night rituals, called witches' Sabbaths, they sacrificed infants to Satan, engaged in cannibalism, and performed disgusting sexual acts. Women's role as mother, as preparer of food, and as object of sexual desire were therefore all inverted in the stereotype of the witch; overtly sexual women were accused of witchcraft along with those who could no longer bear children, were single and poor, and therefore were not of clear economic and social value to the men of the age.
You might also like to view...
? King Cotton failed the South as a tool of wartime diplomacy because
A. Britain held surpluses of cotton when the war began. B. textile workers in Britain favored the North. C. the North sent captured cotton to Britain. D. Britain developed alternative supplies of cotton in Egypt and India. E. the cotton crop was devastated by the boll weevil.
The main actors in the cold war were ________
A) European nations B) communist nations C) the United States and the Soviet Union D) NATO and the Soviet bloc
Lincoln Steffens, in his series of articles entitled "The Shame of the Cities,"
a. exposed the United States Senate as a "rich men's club." b. exposed the deplorable condition of blacks in urban areas. c. laid bare the often corrupt practices of the stock market. d. uncovered official collusion in prostitution and "white slavery." e. unmasked the corrupt alliance between big business and municipal government.
By 1800 European exploration of the Pacific Ocean resulted in all of the following EXCEPT
A) the discovery of a northwest passage from Europe to Asia. B) the first complete circumnavigation of the world. C) the mapping of Australia, New Zealand, and the islands of the South Pacific. D) exploration of the coast of Alaska and the waters of the Arctic Ocean. E) European colonization of the Philippines.