Describe the experiences of women in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANSWER:
Students should understand some of the basic difficulties of explaining the experiences of women. First, women throughout the world generally lived in patriarchal societies and therefore ranked below men. However, social class played an extremely important part in defining their life experiences. Women of the elite class enjoyed a life much different from that of the lower classes. Most European women married, and their lives were defined by their husbands' status and their children. Widowed and single women had lower status. Single women had few opportunities open to them; however, becoming a nun was one of the few respectable options for a single life. Students should discuss the traditions of arranged marriage and romantic marriage among Europeans. Among the elite classes arranged marriage remained important, but among the lower classes romantic marriage became fashionable. These changes had important demographic results. Delaying marriage also resulted in the rise of brothels and rape. Education was also determined as much by class as by gender. Some women of the elite and bourgeois classes were educated; in fact, Europe led the world in female literacy. Men and women of the lower classes did not have access to education. The chapter includes a discussion of witchcraft and the large number of women, rather than men, who were accused. The Christian belief that women were morally inferior to men led accusers to assume that women, especially widows and single women, were more susceptible to the Devil's temptations. Women were also likely to be accused because they were often midwives and healers and thus influenced life and death.