WOMEN

WOMEN. As they have in all the world's cultures, women made up about half the population in early modern Europe, and their experiences were thus nearly as varied as those of men. Like those of men, women's experiences differed according to social class, geographic location, religious affiliation, ethnicity, and rural or urban setting. The life of Queen Elizabeth of England—probably the most powerful and famous woman from this period—was far more like that of her male relatives than like that of a peasant woman in Poland or the Ottoman Empire, or even a peasant woman on one of Elizabeth's own estates. She was highly educated, spoke many languages, held legitimate authority over many people, ate well, and lived quite comfortably, while peasant women—and men—had none of these advantages.

The great changes of the period had widely varying effects on women, creating greater opportunities for some women in some places while lessening opportunities for other women elsewhere. The expansion of rural cloth production, for example, created better-paying work for single women in parts of France, but lessened the demand for cloth made by married Irish women. Leaders of the Protestant Reformation supported teaching girls to read the Bible, but also advocated the closing of convents that provided a place where learned women could study and teach. Urban women in western Europe were increasingly able to obtain cheaper and more diverse consumer goods, but these were often produced in Europe's overseas colonies by men and women working in horrific conditions.

Despite this variety, however, all women in Europe lived in a society that regarded women as inferior to men. This idea undergirded and shaped legal systems, family relationships, inheritance patterns, religious doctrine and institutions, educational opportunities, and structures of work throughout all of Europe. Even Queen Elizabeth was not excluded from this, for her life—and the course of English history—would have been very different had she been a man. Many women, from Queen Elizabeth on down, were able to shape their lives to a great extent despite restrictive ideas and systems, but their actions did not upset the underlying hierarchy of gender. This essay will first examine trends in the way that women's history of the early modern period has been conceptualized and studied, and then explore three realms of life that were especially important in shaping early modern women's situation and experiences: legal systems, work, and religious life.

EARLY MODERN WOMEN'S HISTORY

Intensive study of women in the early modern period, as in most periods, began in the 1970s by asking what women contributed to developments regarded as central to the period, such as the Renaissance, the Reformation, the development of capitalism, the creation of colonial empires, or the rise of the centralized state: Who were the great women artists/musicians/scientists/rulers? How did women's work serve capitalist expansion? What was women's role in political movements such as the English Civil War or other seventeenth-century revolts? Along with this, historians investigated what effects the developments of the early modern period had on women: What was the impact of the Reformation on women's lives? How did the scientific revolution or the Enlightenment shape ideas about women's place? What new products or opportunities were offered to women because of overseas empires?

Both these original lines of questioning continue, particularly for parts of Europe or groups of women that were slower to be studied, such as eastern Europe, Jewish women, or peasant women. They have been augmented more recently by quite different types of questions, as historians have realized the limitations of simply trying to fit women into historical developments largely derived from the male experience (an approach rather sarcastically described as "add women and stir"). Such questions often center on women's physical experiences—menstruation, pregnancy, motherhood—and the ways in which women gave meaning to these experiences, and on private or domestic matters, such as friendship networks, family devotional practices, or unpaid household labor. Because so little of this was documented in public sources during the early modern period, this research has required a great amount of archival digging and the use of literary and artistic sources.

To these older and newer lines of inquiry historians have also added questions about the symbolic role of gender, that is, how qualities judged masculine and feminine are differently valued and then used in discussions that do not explicitly relate to men and women, but that still reinforce women's secondary status. Investigations of the real and symbolic relations between gender and power have usually not been based on new types of sources, but have approached some of the most traditional types of historical sources—political treatises, public speeches by monarchs, state documents, religious tracts, and sermons—with new questions.

Taken together, these investigations have resulted in hundreds of books and thousands of articles on many aspects of the lives of early modern women. This is still far less, of course, than the number of books and articles on men, but it has created a much more complex—and interesting—picture than historians of women could have imagined thirty years ago and has changed the way we view many features of early modern life.

LAW AND LEGAL SYSTEMS

Traditional medieval law codes in Europe accorded women a secondary legal status, based generally on their inability to perform feudal military service; the oldest legal codes required every woman who was not married to have a male legal guardian who could undergo such procedures as trial by combat or trial by ordeal for her. This gender-based guardianship gradually died out in the later Middle Ages as court proceedings replaced physical trials, and unmarried women and widows generally gained the right to hold land on their own and to appear in court on their own behalf. In most parts of Europe, unmarried women and widows could make wills, serve as executors for the wills of others, and serve as witnesses in civil and criminal cases, though they could not serve as witnesses to a will.

Limitations on women's legal rights because of feudal obligations thus lessened in the late Middle Ages, but marriage provided another reason for restricting women's legal role. Marriage was cited as the key reason for excluding women from public offices and duties, for their duty to obey their husbands prevented them from acting as independent persons; the fact that an unmarried woman or widow might possibly get married meant that they, too, were included in this exclusion. A married woman was legally subject to her husband in all things; she could not sue, make contracts, or go to court for any reason without his approval, and in many areas of Europe could not be sued or charged with any civil crime on her own. However, Russian law codes and Islamic law in the Ottoman Empire recognized women's right to sue and be sued as well as certain property and inheritance rights. In many parts of Europe, all goods or property that a wife brought into a marriage and all wages she earned during the marriage were considered the property of her husband, a situation that did not change legally until the nineteenth century.

The husband's control of his wife's property could be modified somewhat by a marriage contract that gave her legal ownership of the dowry she brought into the marriage, or, in some cities, by her declaring herself unmarried (femme sole) for legal purposes, such as borrowing and loaning money or making contracts. In the sixteenth century, wives were also gradually allowed to retain control over some family property if they could prove that their husbands were squandering everything through drink, gambling, or bad investments. In addition to these exceptions provided through law codes, it is clear from court records that women often actively managed their dowry property and carried out legal transactions without getting special approval. The proliferation of exceptions and the fact that women were often able to slip through the cracks of urban law codes began to bother jurists who were becoming educated in Roman law with its goals of comprehensiveness and uniformity. Roman law also gave them additional grounds for women's secondary legal status, for it based this not on feudal obligations or a wife's duty to obey her husband but on women's alleged physical and mental weaknesses, their "fragility, imbecility, irresponsibility, and ignorance," in the words of Justinian's sixth-century code. Along with peasants and the simpleminded, women were regarded as not legally responsible for all of their own actions and could not be compelled to appear before a court; in all cases their testimony was regarded as less credible than a man's. These ideas led jurists in many parts of Europe to recommend, and in some cases implement, the reintroduction of gender-based guardianship; unmarried adult women and widows were again given male guardians and were prohibited from making any financial decisions, even donations to religious institutions, without their approval. In many parts of Europe, women lost the right of guardianship over their own children if they remarried.

Increasing restrictions on unmarried and married women continued throughout the early modern period. In 1731, for example, the Paris Parlement passed the Ordonnance des donations, which reemphasized the power of the husband over the wife; its provisions limiting women's legal rights later became part of the Code Napoléon of the early nineteenth century. The fact that court records show that fewer and fewer women appeared on their own behalf indicates that male guardianship was enforced. Governments generally became less willing to make exceptions in the case of women, as they felt any laxness might disrupt public order.

The spread of Roman law thus had a largely negative effect on women's civil legal status in the early modern period because of both the views of women that jurists chose to adopt from it and the stricter enforcement of existing laws to which it gave rise. Its impact on criminal law was less gender-specific, as was criminal law itself. In general, women throughout Europe were responsible for their own criminal actions and could be tortured and executed just like men. Women were often executed in a manner different from men, buried alive or drowned instead of being beheaded, largely because city executioners thought women would faint at the sight of the sword or ax and make their job more difficult. In Germany, a wife was often included in her husband's banishment for criminal actions—including banishment for adultery!—while the opposite was not the case. In Russia under Ivan the Terrible (ruled 1547–1584), the execution of a husband or father usually meant death for the victim's wife and children as well.

Along with concepts of feudal obligation, wifely obedience, and Roman law, one additional idea was essential in shaping women's legal rights in early modern Europe—the notion of honor. Honor in this period was highly gender-specific, and for women, honor was largely a sexual matter. In most parts of Europe, women of all classes were allowed to bring defamation suits to court for insults to their honor, and it is clear from court records that they did this. Because of ideas of female sinfulness, irrationality, and weakness, however, women, particularly those in the middle and upper classes, were never regarded as able to defend their own honor completely without male assistance. Lower-class women might trade insults or physically fight one another, but middle- and upper-class women were expected to internalize notions of honor and shame and shape their behavior accordingly, depending on male relatives to carry out any public defense of their honor.

WORK

Though the actual work that men and women performed in the early modern economy was often very similar or the same, their relationships to work and their work identities were very different. Male work rhythms and a man's position in the economy were to a large degree determined by age, class, and training, with boys and men often moving as a group from one level of employment to the next. Female work rhythms were also determined by age and class, but even more so by individual biological and social events such as marriage, motherhood, and widowhood, all of which were experienced by women individually and over which they might have little control. Women often changed occupations several times during their lives or performed many different types of jobs at once, so that their identification with any one occupation was not strong.

Women rarely received formal training in a trade, and during the early modern period many occupations were professionalized, setting up required amounts of formal training and a licensing procedure before one could claim an occupational title. Thus in the Middle Ages both male and female practitioners of medicine were often called "physicians," but by the sixteenth century, although women still healed people, only men who had attended university medical school could be called "physicians." This professionalism trickled down to occupations that did not require university training; women might brew herbal remedies, but only men could use the title "apothecary." Professionalization did not simply affect titles, but also the fees people could charge for their services; a university-trained physician, for example, could easily make ten times the annual salary of a female medical practitioner.

During the early modern period, gender also became an important factor in separating what was considered skilled from what was considered unskilled work. Women were judged to be unfit for certain tasks, such as glass cutting, because they were too clumsy and "unskilled," yet those same women made lace or silk thread, jobs that required an even higher level of dexterity than glass cutting. The gendered notion of work meant that women's work was always valued less and generally paid less than men's. All economies need both structure and flexibility, and during the early modern period these qualities became gender-identified: male labor provided the structure, so that it was regulated, tied to a training process, and lifelong; female labor provided the flexibility, so that it was discontinuous, alternately encouraged or suppressed, not linked to formal training, and generally badly paid. Women's work was thus both marginal and irreplaceable.

Despite enormous economic changes during the early modern period, the vast majority of people in almost all parts of Europe continued to live in the countryside, producing agricultural products for their own use and for the use of their landlords. Agricultural tasks were highly, though not completely, gender-specific, though exactly which tasks were regarded as female and which as male varied widely throughout Europe. These gender divisions were partly the result of physical differences, with men generally doing tasks that required a great deal of upper-body strength, such as cutting grain with a scythe; they were partly the result of women's greater responsibility for child care, so that women carried out tasks closer to the house that could be more easily interrupted for nursing or tending children; they were partly the result of cultural beliefs, so that women in parts of Norway, for example, sowed all grain because people felt this would ensure a bigger harvest. Whatever their source, gender divisions meant that the proper functioning of a rural household required at least one adult male and one adult female; remarriage after the death of a spouse was much faster in the countryside than in the cities. Women's labor changed as new types of crops and agricultural products were introduced and as agriculture became more specialized. Women in parts of Italy, for example, tended and harvested olive trees and grape vines, and carried out most of the tasks associated with the production of silk: gathering leaves from mulberry trees, raising the silk cocoons, and processing cocoons into raw silk by reeling and spinning. Women also worked as day laborers in agriculture; from wage regulations, we can see that female agricultural laborers were to be paid about half of what men were, and were also to be given less and poorer quality food.

Women also found work in rural areas in nonagricultural tasks, particularly in mining in central Europe and by the sixteenth century in domestic industry. In mining, women carried ore, wood, and salt, sorted and washed ore, and prepared charcoal briquets for use in smelting. In domestic industry, they produced wool, linen, and later cotton thread or cloth (or cloth that was a mixture of these), and were hired by capitalist investors, especially in parts of France, southern Germany, and northern Italy, as part of a household or as an individual. In areas of Europe where whole households were hired, domestic industry often broke down gender divisions, for men, women, and children who were old enough all worked at the same tasks; labor became a more important economic commodity than property, which led to earlier marriage, weaker parental control over children, and more power to women in family decision making. In parts of Europe where women were hired as individuals, men's agricultural tasks were more highly paid, so men continued to make most of the decisions in the family, and there was little change in women's status.

In the cities, domestic service was probably the largest employer of women throughout the period. Girls might begin service as young as seven or eight, traveling from their home village to a nearby town. Cities also offered other types of service employment on a daily or short-term basis. Many of these jobs were viewed as extensions of a woman's functions and tasks in the home—cleaning, cooking, laundering, caring for children and old people, nursing the sick, preparing bodies for burial, mourning the dead. The hospitals, orphanages, and infirmaries run by the Catholic Church were largely staffed by women, as were similar secular institutions that many cities set up beginning in the fifteenth century. In most parts of Europe, women continued to dominate midwifery, the one female occupation whose practitioners developed a sense of work identity nearly as strong as that of men.

The city marketplace, the economic as well as geographic center of most cities, was filled with women; along with rural women with their agricultural and animal products there were city women with sausage, pretzels, meat pies, cookies, candles, soap, and wooden implements they had made. Women sold fresh and salted fish that their husbands had caught or that they had purchased from fishermen, game and fowl they had bought from hunters, and imported food items such as oranges, and, in the eighteenth century, tea and coffee bought from international merchants. Women also ran small retail establishments throughout the city. They made beer, mead, and hard cider, and ran taverns and inns to dispense their beverages and provide sleeping quarters for those too poor to stay in the more established inns. Among Muslim populations in Ottoman urban centers, a number of women vendors, many of them Christians and Jews, catered to upper-class harem women.

Domestic industry provided employment for increasing numbers of urban as well as rural women, particularly in spinning. Early modern techniques of cloth production necessitated up to twenty carders and spinners per weaver, so that cloth centers like Florence, Augsburg, or Antwerp could keep many people employed. The identification of women and spinning became very strong in the early modern period, and by the seventeenth century unmarried women in England came to be called "spinsters."

Women increasingly turned to spinning as other employment avenues were closed to them, particularly in craft guilds, which continued to dominate the production and distribution of most products throughout the early modern period. There were a few all-female guilds in cities with highly specialized economies such as Cologne, Paris, and Rouen, but in general the guilds were male organizations and followed the male life cycle. One became an apprentice at puberty, became a journeyman four to ten years later, traveled around learning from a number of masters, then settled down, married, opened one's own shop, and worked at the same craft full-time until one died or got too old to work any longer. Women fit into guilds much more informally, largely through their relationship to a master as his wife, daughter, or domestic servant. Masters' widows ran shops after the death of their husbands, and were expected to pay all guild fees, though they could not participate in running the guild. As the result of economic decline, the competition of rural and urban proto-industrial development, the increasingly political nature of the guilds, and notions of guild honor, even this informal participation began to be restricted in the fifteenth century on the Continent, however, and women largely lost this relatively high-status work opportunity.

RELIGION

In Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, the early modern period was a time when the domestic nature of women's acceptable religious activities was reinforced. The proper sphere for the expression of women's religious ideas was a household, whether the secular household of a Jewish, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, or Muslim marriage, or the spiritual household of an enclosed Catholic or Orthodox convent. Times of emergency and instability, such as the expulsion of the Jews and Muslims from Spain, the first years of the Protestant Reformation, the English Civil War, or the Schism Crisis in Russia, offered women opportunities to play a public religious role, but these were clearly regarded as extraordinary by male religious thinkers and by many of the women who wrote or spoke publicly during these times. Women who were too assertive in expressing themselves during more stable times, or who were too individualistic in their ideas, risked being termed insane or being imprisoned by religious or secular courts.

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all contain strong streaks of misogyny and were in the early modern period totally controlled by male hierarchies with the highest (or all) levels of the clergy reserved for men. In all three, God is thought of as male, the account of Creation appears to ascribe or ordain a secondary status for women, and women are instructed to be obedient and subservient; all three religious traditions were used by men as buttresses for male authority in all realms of life, not simply religion. Nevertheless, it was the language of religious texts, and the examples of pious women who preceded them, that were used most often by women to subvert or directly oppose male directives.

Before the Reformation in western Europe and throughout the early modern period in eastern Europe, the most powerful and in many ways independent women in Christianity were the abbesses of certain convents, who controlled large amounts of property and often had jurisdiction over many subjects. Convents had widely varying levels of religious devotion and intellectual life; many were little more than dumping grounds for unmarriagable daughters, while others were important centers of piety and learning. In the fifteenth century many underwent a process of reform designed to enforce strict rules of conduct and higher standards of spirituality. These reforms put convents more closely under the control of a local male bishop, taking away some of the abbess's independent power, but also built up a strong sense of group cohesion among the nuns and gave them a greater sense of the spiritual worth of their lives. In addition to living in convents, a number of women in the late Middle Ages lived in less structured religious communities, supporting themselves by weaving, sewing, or caring for the sick.

Like Christianity itself, the Protestant Reformation both expanded and diminished women's opportunities. The period in which women were most active was the decade or so immediately following an area's decision to break with the Catholic Church, or while this decision was being made. In Germany and many other parts of Europe, that decision was made by a political leader—a prince, duke, king, or city council—who then had to create an alternative religious structure. During this period, many groups and individuals tried to shape the new religious institutions. Sometimes this popular pressure took the form of religious riots, in which women and men destroyed paintings, statues, stained-glass windows, or other objects that symbolized the old religion, or protected such objects from destruction at the hands of government officials; in 1536 at Exeter in England, for example, a group of women armed with shovels and pikes attacked workers who had been hired by the government to dismantle a monastery. Sometimes this popular pressure took the form of writing, when women and men who did not have formal theological training took the notion of the "priesthood of all believers" literally and preached or published polemical religious literature explaining their own ideas.

Women's preaching or publishing religious material stood in direct opposition to the words ascribed to St. Paul (1 Timothy 2:11–15), which ordered women not to teach or preach, so that all women who published felt it necessary to justify their actions. Once Protestant churches were institutionalized, polemical writings by women (and untrained men) largely stopped. Women continued to write hymns and devotional literature, but these were often published posthumously or were designed for private use. Women's actions as well as their writings in the first years of the Reformation upset political and religious authorities. Many cities prohibited women from even getting together to discuss religious matters, and in 1543 an act of Parliament in England banned all women except those of the gentry and nobility from reading the Bible; upper-class women were also prohibited from reading the Bible aloud to others.

Once the Reformation was established, most women expressed their religious convictions in a domestic, rather than public, setting. They prayed and recited the catechism with children and servants, attended sermons, read the Bible or other devotional literature if they were literate, served meals that no longer followed Catholic fast prescriptions, and provided religious instruction for their children. Women's domestic religion frequently took them beyond the household, however, for they gave charitable donations to the needy and often assisted in caring for the ill and indigent. Such domestic and charitable activities were widely praised by Protestant reformers as long as husband and wife agreed in their religious opinions. If there was disagreement, however, most Protestants generally urged the wife to obey her husband rather than what she perceived as God's will.

The Protestant rejection of celibacy had a great impact on female religious, both cloistered nuns and women who lived in less formal religious communities. In most areas becoming Protestant, monasteries and convents were closed; nuns got very small pensions and were expected to return to their families. In parts of Germany where convents had long been powerful, nuns became the most vocal and resolute opponents of the Protestant Reformation; the nuns' firmness combined with other religious and political factors to allow many convents to survive for centuries as Catholic establishments within Protestant territories or even as Lutheran institutions, redefined as educational centers for young women.

The response of the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation is often described as two interrelated movements, a Counter-Reformation that attempted to win territory and people back to loyalty to Rome and prevent further spread of Protestant ideas, and a reform of abuses and problems within the Catholic Church that had been recognized as problems by many long before the Protestant Reformation. Women were actively involved in both movements, but their actions were generally judged more acceptable when they were part of a reform drive; even more than the medieval crusades, the fight against Protestants, which was generally couched in very military language and could involve secret missions into "enemy" territory, was to be a masculine affair. Women who felt God had called them to oppose Protestants directly through missionary work, or to carry out the type of active service to the world in schools and hospitals that the Franciscans, Dominicans, and the new orders like the Jesuits were making increasingly popular with men, were largely opposed by the church hierarchy. The Council of Trent, the church council that met between 1545 and 1563 to define what Catholic positions would be on matters of doctrine and discipline, reaffirmed the necessity of cloister for all women religious, though enforcement of this decree came slowly. The only active apostolate left open to religious women was the instruction of girls, and that only within the convent. No nuns were sent to the foreign missions for any public duties, though once colonies were established in the New World and Asia cloistered convents quickly followed.

Some analysts see the period of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as a time when western European religion was feminized, as large numbers of people turned to groups that emphasized personal conversion, direct communication with God, and moral regeneration. Many of these groups were inspired by or even founded by women, and had a disproportionate number of women among their followers. Women prophesied, published religious works, and even occasionally preached during the English Civil War, and also organized prayer meetings and conventicles in their houses. Quaker women preached throughout England and the English colonies in the New World, and were active as missionaries also in Ireland and Continental Europe well into the eighteenth century. Jansenism, a movement primarily within the French Catholic Church that emphasized personal holiness and spiritual renewal, attracted many women, and the convent of Port-Royal in Paris became the movement's spiritual center. In Germany, Pietism developed as a grass-roots movement of lay people who met in prayer circles and conventicles, among which were many women.

Judaism and Islam were minority religions in western Europe and Russia in the early modern period, and Jewish and Muslim women, along with men, were often the targets of persecution. Jewish women as well as men were questioned, tortured, physically punished, and in some cases executed by the Inquisition in Spain, leading Jews in other parts of Europe to make special efforts to help women of Jewish ancestry leave Spain and Portugal. Jewish women were excluded from public religious life, but they did have specific religious duties relating to the household and special prayers to say when they carried out these duties. Like Jewish women, Spanish Muslim women (termed "Moriscas") carried out religious rituals in their homes and taught them to their children. According to the records of the Inquisition, Moriscas observed the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, performed daily prayers, hid religious books and amulets written in Arabic in their clothing and furniture, taught Muslim ideas and practices to Christian women who married Muslim men, and organized funerals, weddings, and other ceremonies.

Women's lives involved much more than legal systems, work, and religious life, of course, but it is as impossible to cover all aspects of their lives in a relatively brief article as it would be those of men's lives. In fact, including a separate article on women—without a corresponding article on men—goes to some degree against recent research, which has emphasized the diversity more than the commonalities in women's experience across Europe. Even the experience of the relatively small group of women who held political power was diverse. Elizabeth I's situation was very different from that of queen mothers in France such as Marie de Médicis, female rulers of eastern Europe such as Maria Theresa, tsarinas such as Catherine the Great, or mothers of the sultans (known as the valide-sultan ) in the Ottoman Empire. Thus perhaps the only generalization safe to make is that gender shaped the lives of all early modern Europeans in complex ways, and that every development of the period was shaped by, and in turn shaped, ideas about or structures of gender.

See also Bassi, Laura ; Behn, Aphra ; Catherine II (Russia) ; Concubinage ; Cornaro Piscopia, Elena Lucrezia ; Divorce ; Elizabeth I (England) ; Feminism ; Gender ; Gentileschi, Artemisia ; Harem ; Inheritance and Wills ; Jansenism ; Maria Theresa (Holy Roman Empire) ; Marie de Médicis ; Marriage ; Midwives ; Motherhood and Childbearing ; Pietism ; Quakers ; Quietism ; Reformation, Catholic ; Reformation, Protestant ; Salons ; Widows and Widowhood ; Witchcraft ; Women and Art .

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Merry Wiesner-Hanks

Cartomancy/Tarot

Seeking to foretell the future through a deck of cards (cartomancy) is an old and time-honored practice and a favorite of many professional, as well as amateur, psychics and seers. The exact time and place in which playing cards originated is unknown. However, it is certain that the cards were originally used as tools of divining the future, not for playing games. Some authorities attribute the popularity of using cards to predict the future to the Gypsies, but it is difficult to separate such an assertion from the many stereotypes of the occult and the mysterious that have been visited upon these nomadic people.

Whether or not the origin of card reading can be attributed to the Gypsies, there is a loose consensus that it was wandering tribes of gypsies who brought the prototype of what is today considered a deck of cards to Europe some time in the fourteenth century. Although it is thought that the Gypsies came west from India by way of Persia, they often claimed that they were originally from Egypt. To make such an association with the ancient mysteries of the Nile added to their status with the Europeans and also increased the aura of the mysterious that they sought to create around themselves. Portraying themselves as diviners in the magical traditions of Egypt, the Gypsies began reading fortunes with picture cards called atouts that were popular in Persia. When the deck underwent a transformation in Europe, it was called tarots. These decks were similar to modern packs, but there were 78, rather than 52, cards, and the suits were not the familiar diamonds, spades, clubs, and hearts, but swords, cups, coins, and rods. Rather than king, queen, and jack, the tarot deck had 22 picture cards, and the king, queen, knight, and knave (or page) joined the "spot" cards from 10 down to one for each suit.

The theory perhaps closest to the true origin of the tarot cards as they appear today dates from the Renaissance (14th–17th century). Prior to this time, Gnostics, who are believed to have introduced the tarot into southern Europe, had to take their faith underground in order to escape persecution. To preserve their teachings, they recorded the fundamentals of their beliefs on a set of 22 plates that depicted the spiritual growth of humankind. Each plate, or card, in the 22 major mysteries (the Major Arcana) told the story of a single aspect of an individual initiate's inner spiritual progress to the state of complete perfection.

The Major Arcana follow humankind's spiritual pilgrimage toward the state of final perfection. The Minor Arcana trace humanity's journey through time. Essential to the understanding of the tarot is the doctrine of reincarnation, which teaches that each soul must experience birth into both sexes and all five races before it can attain final perfection.

The tarot, which some authorities describe as one of the world's oldest books disguised as a pack of playing cards, has remained a popular method of divining the future. Combining esoteric wisdom with the Hebrew system of numbers, many individuals maintain that it is likely that the philosophy of the ancient Kabbalah was the spiritual ancestor of the philosophy of the tarot. Enthusiasts in the New Age Movement have rediscovered and embraced the teachings of the Kabbalah and the ancient Egyptian wisdoms believed to be instilled in the cards. Although many authorities have suggested that the tarot cards were adapted from the pages of the legendary Egyptian book of magic, the Book of Thoth—and certain of the imagery on the cards encourages these perceptions—such an assertion cannot be proved. What does appear to be authentic lore in regard to the tarot cards is the fact that the Gnostics, during a period of persecution, recorded the fundamentals of their beliefs on plates similar to the cards of the tarot's Major Arcana. Adepts of the Kabbalah formalized the figures and established 22 allegories to correspond to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, maintaining that each letter was itself a divine being with occult powers of its own.

In the tarot, the two constituents of the world, or the system of worldly things, are duly represented. The 22 cards of the Major Arcana are concerned directly with the individual. The trump cards allegorize the traits and qualities that combine into personality, the relative conditions of good and evil that constitute a concept of conventional morality, and the substances expressed by the ancients as the four elements comprising a human's physical organism. The tarot is established on the premise that each human being is his or her own macrocosm. Although comprising a distinctive universe in miniature, the individual still functions as a component of the cosmic macrocosm. In the world, humans must have a society, with institutions to perform collectively for them the functions they cannot accomplish as individuals. Again, the situation is the same in the realm of the tarot.

Seeking to foretell the future through the tarot cards is an extremely ancient means of divination. Each card in the deck has acquired a traditional interpretation over the centuries, and the reader—or person telling the fortune—must become familiar with these meanings in order to give an accurate reading for the querent, the person seeking the foretelling of his or her future. There are many methods of placing or laying out the cards in the course of the reading. The reader may have the querent select a card at random to represent him or her in the reading and the resultant spread may revolve around that particular card. The reader may discover a particular spread or layout of the cards that seems to stimulate his or her psychic awareness and increase the ability to "tune in to" the querent. Some readers prefer to lay out the cards in the pattern of a cross, a circle, or several rows of cards placed in various representations of what the reader perceives as best providing him or her with a window to the querent's future.

Here are some basic meanings of the individual cards in the Major Arcana:

The Juggler or Magician (arcanum one) stands with one hand raised to heaven and the other pointing to Earth, thereby confirming the teaching of Hermes Trismegistus that what is in heaven is like what is below, that the little world (microcosm) within a human being contains the elements of the universe (macrocosm), and that the study of humankind can lead the adept to an understanding of all creation. The number one signifies the first principle, unity, and in every religion it is the number representing the Divine Being. One is also the number of the soul of nature, the soul of the elements, and the active, causative and creative force of the unseen universe.

The High Priestess (arcanum two) is the most holy card in the tarot deck. It represents humankind's innate ability to interpret the word of God, the highest form of intellectual activity. The High Priestess symbolizes the knowledge hidden in the subconscious of every human being, and her image offers the wisdom that in order to tap the wellspring of occult knowledge, one must search one's own subconscious. Number two stands for the mother principle and represents the expression of unity through woman (one and one).

The Empress (arcanum three) is the symbol of feminine instinct, a thought or solution that arises directly from the subconscious. The number three is the key that unlocks the door to intuition and is the driving energy that unites positive and negative, male and female. On the material level, the Empress card represents the human aspect of love and symbolizes the sexual conjunction of male and female.

The Emperor (arcanum four) warns that no one can compromise with his or her conscience. The Emperor of wisdom is activated by the fire of the vital force within all humans and regenerated by the alchemical slogan that all nature is regenerated by fire. The number four represents the primordial substance that is the origin of all the universe and is the numerical constituent of all manifestations in the third dimension.

The Hierophant, or Pope (arcanum five), stands for the search for truth and represents all organized religions, education, schooling, and any other kind of formal learning processes. The Pope, the interpreter of sacred mysteries, points the way to the pathways of silence and watchfulness and enables seekers to discover the inherent power of creative ability that lies dormant within them. Number five stands for the universal power of faith over human imagination, the faith to be creatively new.

The Lovers (arcanum six) represents marriage, the love of sibling for sibling, of parent for child, or the mystical bond that unites all those who are alike in soul. Number six signifies spiritual development, charity, and divine love and represents the duality of every problem in terms of both attraction and repulsion.

The Chariot (arcanum seven) driven by the king—its horses and wheels seemingly pulling away from each other, yet drawing the same vehicle—is an allegory of the struggle of the negative and positive forces that operate in all people during their journey toward the spiritual life. The Chariot symbolizes the victory of the inwardly united individual over the obstacles of life. Number seven represents the Fatherhood of God and divine realization.

Justice (arcantun eight), as it is expressed in the tarot's imagery, is not blindfolded. The ancients pictured Justice as a woman of mature age with large, open eyes; it is modern culture that has pictured Justice as blind. Justice also represents self-initiation into life's adversities, during which one looks inwardly and without bias at one's true self. The number eight signifies dualism, positive and negative, and the actions of unseen forces on matter.

The Hermit (arcanum nine) stands for every spiritual seeker in search of himself or herself. The Hermit pursues the lonely path of the awakened soul in his search for truth, guided by his lantern and protected by his staff. In essence, this card represents the experience of self-initiation and signifies wisdom and silence. Nine symbolizes astral light, the matrix of all visible forms of life.

The Wheel of Fortune (arcanum ten) is the card of victory, the sign of obstacles overcome by good fortune and by the active participation of the individual in the activities of the microcosm. The Wheel, or circle, is the symbol of completion, as every human is a closed system within himself or herself. A blind virgin cranked the Wheel, as all humans are controlled by unperceived psychic powers. Humans must learn to use their psychic abilities to control their life, rather than allow their life to be buffeted about in a blind manner.

The Force (arcanum eleven) symbolizes the inner strength by which one may overcome obstacles placed in the path of spiritual progress. Eleven is the number of the Aquarian Age, and represents universal energy— prana. Eleven also symbolizes spiritual will power, vitality, and/or intense strength.

The Hanged Man (arcanum twelve) represents taking on the new and giving up the old. This card allegorizes the prudent adept of arcanum nine (The Hermit), who has now freed himself from the Wheel of Life and Rebirth of arcanum ten. The adept has been elevated to glory through the equation and harmony between the higher and lower selves. Number 12 symbolizes sacrifice and signifies immortality and the elixir of life.

Death (arcanum thirteen) is interpreted as the giving up of old ways, the complete severance with the past, and the ending of friendships or close associations. Tarot card 13 also signifies discarding old ideas and modes of action. Death's sickle is a symbol of reaping, allegorizing the harvest of what humankind has endured in the physical state. The number 13 is neither lucky nor unlucky when considered by itself, and the number most often signifies a change for the better, a new birth.

Temperance or Patience (arcanum fourteen) signifies a time of waiting, a time for putting aside petty squabbles, a time for learning patience and understanding. Temperance, the Angel of Time, symbolizes hermetic harmony and equilibrium, the working unity of the male and female principles of nature and of humankind; and in humanity, the merger of soul and spirit. The number 14 symbolizes the descent of spirit into matter and represents the activity of humankind in the round of the seasons.

The Devil (arcanum fifteen) represents trouble. Being an individualist, the Devil upset the commandments of heaven, which enforced moral conduct, and so brought turmoil to the masses. He is the symbol of bad luck and of destruction, the antithesis of good. Fifteen signifies destiny and represents the immense force or power in the mind of humankind.

The Tower of Destruction (arcanum sixteen), the Lightning-Struck Tower, depicts pandemonium, bedlam, and disruption. The struck tower symbolizes the dark night of the soul when the spiritually untested and immature seekers are confronted by a dramatic test of their faith. In this respect, the Tower of Destruction has also been referred to as the "Fall of the Angels." The number 16 symbolizes an ending, a move, or a change; therefore, this card can also signify the breaking up of a romance or a love affair.

The Stars (arcanum seventeen) represents good luck or hope. The seven small stars on the card symbolize the universe along with the charity and hope represented by the number seven. The water in the stream before which the woman kneels symbolizes patience, utilized in overcoming obstacles. Above the kneeling woman's head are seven stars, symbols of solar energy directing beneficent rays on the enlightened adept. Directly above the woman's head, the top star—the star of the Magi —indicates the challenge presented by youth in its attempt to revitalize the earth. The number 17 represents wisdom and immortality.

The Moon (arcanum eighteen) is the representation of unknown facts, of knowledge obscured, and an interference with the search for hidden knowledge. The Moon's magnetism preserves and generates life, and the dog pictured on the card undoubtedly belongs to Hecate, the goddess of the Moon's darker aspect, or to Diana, goddess of the chase. The Moon itself symbolizes the reflected rays of the subconscious, and the light falling from the Moon signifies the descent of spirit into matter. The number 18 is a sign of trouble, anxiety, failure, and hidden dangers in general.

The Sun (arcanum nineteen) stands for good luck. The Moon (arcanum eighteen) gives insufficient light to illuminate hidden subconscious knowledge, but the Sun brings clarity, resulting in understanding, comprehension, and happiness. It enables adepts to see the essence of their acquired knowledge and fosters further enlightenment. The Sun card symbolizes complete identification with life here and now, and the hope and possibility of a life, or lives, yet to come in a higher state of being.

On The Judgment (arcanum twenty), Gabriel's trumpet summons the adept to newness of life, to change. The Judgment is a positive card, bringing portents of goodness and happiness. The man pictured rising from the depths of the earth represents self-consciousness. The woman rising with him symbolizes the subconscious, and the figure of their child represents the regenerated personality of the adept made manifest. The card does not refer to a final or universal judgment, for the earth traveler is summoned to judgment many times by the cyclical workings of karma.

The World (arcanum twenty-one) is the last numbered card of the Major Arcana and presents an allegory of transmutation completed. The adept has reached the ultimate end of his or her journey and has achieved an innate knowledge of all that is good in the universe, which is symbolized by the wreath that surrounds the Virgin. The World card represents honesty and truth, as well as success, harmony, and attainment.

The figure of The Fool (arcanum 0), stands for an individual who becomes so involved in the occult sciences that he or she misses the path to spiritual development. The Fool also reminds everyone that they learn from their mistakes. It carries a small pack on a stick, symbolizing the karmic debts which all men and women must carry through life. The Fool warns the wise that the more they know the less they really know, once they have become aware of the vast unknown.

The 56 cards of the Minor Arcana symbolize the four basic component groups of medieval society. The pip cards, therefore, are divided into four suits, each bearing a symbol representing one of these groups. Batons, also known as rods, which once represented the peasant or serf class, have come to be the symbol of money and financial interests. Coins, the card of the merchant or tradesman class, symbolize enterprise and worldly glory. Cups, the symbol of love and happiness, is the tarot representative of the clergy, while swords stand for the medieval nobility and allegorize hatred and misfortune.

Each of the four suits of the Minor Arcana has its own royal family. These are the king, queen, cavalier (knight), and knave (page, young male or female servant). In the world, a king is a man who rules a major territorial unit, one who holds a preeminent position and is a chief among competitors. It is the same in the tarot. The kings of batons, coins, cups, and swords each stand for a powerful male person with superior qualities, knowledge, and abilities in the category represented by his symbol. A queen, in the world and in the tarot, is the female counterpart of a king, and the same may be said for the queen of each respective suit with respect for gender. A cavalier, or knight, is a man upon whom a corresponding dignity has been conferred by a monarch, and in the tarot, represents a young man with qualities much like those of his parents, the king and queen of the same suit. All royal families have servants, and so it is with the rulers of the Minor Arcana suits. The knave in each suit represents either a young man or woman of humbler station than the cavalier, who is at times tricky, even deceitful.

Coins. Coins, or money, is the symbol of enterprise and worldly glory. The king of coins represents a man of refinement, wise in the ways of the marketplace. If the king of coins turns up in an inverted position, he will bring the negative qualities of doubt, fear, and danger.

The queen of money represents the hope of acquiring the ability to overcome obstacles. If inverted, she becomes a sign of evil.

The cavalier of coins symbolizes omens of disunion, discord, or quarrels. If this card turns up with the knight's head downward, its significance is reversed.

The knave, or servant of the house of coins, brings good news. If the knave is dealt upside down, he becomes a bearer of ill tidings.

The "spot" or numbered cards of the suit of coins are interpreted as follows: Ten brings the qualities of confidence, security, and honor. Nine signifies order, discipline, and an ability to plan. Eight is a sign of understanding. Seven promises success in life, gain for one's enterprises, and a general condition of advantage and profit. Six is read as a sign of a promising undertaking. The five of coins points to gain and riches. Card four predicts a successful enterprise. The three also points to a prosperous enterprise. Two is a happy omen of good fortune. The one signifies a beginning.

Cups. Of more vital concern than money in the lives of most people are love and happiness. The king of cups represents a just man of fair play. Likewise, the queen of cups evokes the image of a well-loved, motherly woman. The knight of cups symbolizes a fair young man who possesses the same qualities as the king and queen. The page symbolizes similar qualities of love and happiness. If any of these cards are dealt inverted, their meaning signifies aspects of distrust and unhappiness.

The ten of cups represents satisfaction in personal accomplishments. The nine means triumph. Eight insures the forthcoming fulfillment of a wish. Seven indicates the presence of fresh concepts or images. The six of cups reveals thoughts of past loves. Five portends a union, possibly marriage. Four indicates displeasure over a relationship. Three is a happy card, promising success. The two of cups symbolizes love, the result of one added to one. The one-spot alludes celebrations and good cheer.

Swords. The tarot cards bearing swords bring associations of power, authority, hatred, and misfortune. The king of swords represents a man of authority, one used to issuing orders and seeing to their execution even if they bring about grief and fear. The queen of swords allegorizes a woman who is malicious, spiteful, selfishly domineering. The knight of swords brings to mind the same dark thoughts as the king and queen. The valet of this ominous suit can be seen as a spiteful, malicious, and prying young man or woman. Inverted, these cards suggest more positive applications of wealth and power.

The ten of swords foreshadows tears, afflictions, and sorrow. The nine is a card of hope. The eight relates to general calamities, such as sickness or injury. The seven reverses the ill omens of its predecessor, with an upsurge of hope and confidence. Six denotes a voyage. Five is a card of sadness and mourning. The four mirrors thoughts of stillness and periods of solitude. The three of swords is the card of severance and removal. The two stands for friendship. The ace is a herald of triumph.

Batons. The batons, also called rods or clubs, are symbols of the peasants or serfs of medieval society. The king of batons epitomizes the self-made man, a symbol of success through hard work. The queen of clubs is a loving woman, but very reserved. The knight of clubs indicates the presence of a helpful person. The valet who attends the royal family of finance is a man or woman of extremely sensitive nature. If any of these cards are inverted, they indicate individuals who may cause severe problems.

The ten of batons depicts gambling for high stakes. Nine indicates a loss of money. Eight brings good luck. The seven is a happy card of profit and gain. The six of batons is a portent of gifts, of gratification of desires. The five reveals thoughts permeated by avarice and greed. Four symbolizes gaiety and the pleasures money can buy. Three is a noble card, representing dignity transcending frivolous, impulsive actions. The two of clubs indicates a loss of money. The ace reveals a state of perfect contentment and triumph.

It is essential to remember that the meaning of any card of the tarot is colored by the interpretation the reader gets clairvoyantly. Although it may often appear that cosmic forces rule the tarot, and that the sequence of a shuffled and cut deck is not accidental, the cards must still be regarded as a device to free the reader's psychically sensitive subconscious and to serve as a generator of spontaneous thought. Its legendary powers exist within, not without, the human psyche.

Telling Fortunes with Modern Playing Cards

As with the tarot, each card in the modern deck of playing cards has acquired a traditional interpretation over the centuries, and the reader—or person telling the fortune—has become familiar with these meanings. The next step in the process is to interpret the drawing or placing of each card by the querent (or questioner)—the person seeking the fortune—in terms of certain of the cards next to which it appears in the layout or draw.

There are about as many methods of placing or laying out the cards as there are card readers. The reader may have the querent select a card at random to represent him or her in the reading and the resultant spread may revolve around that particular card. The reader may also through the process of trial and error develop a spread or layout that seems to stimulate his or her psychic awareness and increase the ability to "tune in to" the querent. Some readers prefer to draw—or allow the querent to draw—one card at a time and do a free-flowing interpretation. Others like the pattern of a cross, a circle, or several rows of cards placed in various representations of what the reader perceives as best providing a window to the querent's future.

Listed are some basic meanings of the individual cards in the traditional deck—minus the Joker (some readers use this card to represent the querent):

DIAMONDS: Diamonds represent the practical, material side of life, especially money. They can also stand for difficulties that will arise if insufficient energy is expended in the desire to accomplish financial goals.

The ace of diamonds signifies a beginning or an important message that brings money or a gift to the recipient. The king of diamonds represents a man who has achieved material wealth and success. The queen of diamonds is a woman who is noted for her flirtatious nature and her tendency to gossip about others. The jack of diamonds symbolizes a jealous friend or relative.

Regarding the "spot" or numbered cards of the suit of diamonds: Ten brings money—or possibly a journey that will result in financial success. Nine signifies a wish to wander and explore. Eight is a sign of financial success or a marriage that will take place. Seven warns of ill fortune in a financial enterprise. Six is read as an early marriage that is likely to fail. The five of diamonds points to gain and prosperity in business and in marriage. Four predicts that quarrels and disagreements lie ahead. The three points to disputes, quarrels, and potential lawsuits. Two is a happy card of good fortune in both love and business.

HEARTS: Hearts symbolize a strong emotional force that can nullify evil and indicate success in business, as well as in love.

The ace of hearts alludes to happiness in the home. The king of hearts is a just man, remembered for his fair play and his generosity. The queen of hearts evokes the image of a well-loved woman, a mother, faithful wife, or one's true love. The jack symbolizes a reliable and trustworthy friend or relative.

The ten of hearts promises success and good fortune in any project. The nine represents triumph, fulfillment, and success. When the eight turns up, it insures a happy occasion. Seven indicates false hopes. The six reveals a weakness to be overly generous and trusting. Five is a card of indecision. The four of hearts is the card of the bachelor or the spinster. The three is a card of cautions against becoming impetuous or easily angered. The two of hearts symbolizes success in love and in business.

SPADES: Although they have a reputation for being all bad, spades often signify warnings and cautions, rather than predicting actual dire consequences. Generally, though, when spades appear in a spread, they indicate bad luck, financial loss, illness, separation, divorce, even death.

The ace of spades is the card of misfortune, sometimes dramatically named the "death card." The ace may also signal the end of a relationship or a business situation. The king of spades represents a man whose unchecked ambitions may cause him to prove to be a danger. The queen of spades allegorizes a woman who is malicious, spiteful, selfishly domineering. The jack of spades can be seen as a spiteful and prying young man or woman, who only pretends to be a friend.

The ten of spades is an unlucky card that foreshadows tears, afflictions, and sorrows. The nine of spades is regarded as the absolute worst card in the pack and indicates forthcoming illness, loss of money, the infidelity of a loved one, or the failure of a business. The eight warns about false friends. The seven cautions one to avoid misunderstandings with friends and relatives. Six of spades is associated with discouragements, but the card also offers the hope of overcoming troubles through perseverance. Five is a lucky card representing business success and a happy marriage. The four of spades indicates a brief illness, temporary financial reverses, and warns against the petty jealousy of others. The three of spades is an unhappy card of severance and separation in love or marriage. The two indicates a complete separation from loved ones, the loss of a home, or a death.

CLUBS: While clubs most often symbolize friendship, they also warn of hypocrisy and treachery. Although clubs are generally good cards, they may advise caution in any life situation that involves placing too much trust in fair-weather friends.

The ace of clubs reveals a state of perfect contentment and triumph. It is a card of wealth, fame, and success in a chosen profession. The king of clubs represents a man who, though sometimes a rival, is a valuable friend. The queen of clubs is a woman who is occasionally temperamental, but who can always be relied upon to be loyal in love or in friendship. The jack signifies a generous, sincere, and constant friend whose devotion is never in question.

The ten of clubs is a strong good luck card. Nine indicates a loss of money and a variety of other troubles, including serious disputes with friends or family members. Eight of clubs warns against incurring bad debts. The seven is a happy card of profit and gain. The six of clubs is the partnership card, a sure portent of success based on a trustworthy friendship. The five is a marriage card, usually representing a happy future for both parties. Four symbolizes danger or a sudden misfortune or failure. Three is a sign of a second marriage and possibly a third. The two of clubs is an unwelcome card, indicating a loss of money or friendship.

How often may the cards be consulted by the querent? Most card readers answer that question by saying as often as the client wishes. Generally, repeat deals or readings should only be done to clarify questions left unanswered or unclear.

Delving Deeper

Cirlot, J. E. A Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1993.

Gibson, Walter B., and Litzka R. Gibson. The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1966.

Karcher, Stephen. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Divination. Rockport, Mass.: Element Books, 1997.

Louis, Anthony. Tarot Plain and Simple. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1996.

Petrie, Jodra. Tell Fortunes and Predict the Future. New York: Award Books, 1968.

Waite, Arthur E. A Manual of Cartomancy and Occult Divination. Kessinger Publishing, 1997.

Women

THE FIRST VARIABLE: THE LIFE COURSE

THE SECOND VARIABLE: SOCIETY

THE THIRD VARIABLE: HISTORIC FACTORS

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A definition of “woman” that applies cross-culturally, one that includes the definitions offered by societies that are not part of our own Western/industrial tradition, will inevitably include some allusions to female physiology and to cultural constructions that include women’s reproductive role, spiritual role (or its absence), domestic role, work role, and role in the care of children, assigning varying degrees of importance to each. The definition of womanhood may or may not be related to a society’s definition of manhood, and may or may not be related to other gender categories that a society might recognize—which can be as many as five.

Furthermore, the definition of “woman” and “womanhood,” when viewed from a cross-cultural perspective, will vary depending upon three variables. The first variable is the society’s recognition of the specific stages of the female life course. Societies differ in how they identify and define the physical and psychological maturational stages of a woman’s individual development. Some stages that we may readily identify in our own society (such as getting a driver’s license) do not exist or are ignored, while other developmental events are given exaggerated attention and some are of such importance that they are accorded ceremonial recognition. The second variable, the society into which the individual is born (or of which she may become a member by a choice made later in life), will provide a variety of cultural expectations, some of which every individual female member is expected to meet and some of which only a chosen few may achieve. The third variable consists of the time period in the history of a particular society in which the individual finds herself. These three variables are not necessarily independent but can interact with each other to provide the specific definition of what it means to be a “woman” for a female individual of a particular age, in a specific society, and at a particular moment in history.

THE FIRST VARIABLE: THE LIFE COURSE

In all societies, the infant’s sex is noted at birth, and in some societies, a female identity may lead to immediate infanticide. Yet often the baby is viewed as virtually neuter, in contrast to our own society, in which even the tiniest infant garments are gendered. Recognition of the individual’s gender can begin at various stages early in the life course, but by the time signs of adolescence appear, the individual has been assigned. Although some societies did not particularly note menarche or other evidences of adolescence, in many traditional societies, mere girls could only “be made into women” by means of an elaborate ritual. In these societies, only the initiated conformed to the definition of “woman.” Such ceremonies, sometimes celebrated individually at the time of menarche and sometimes celebrated for groups of girls at the approximate onset of their adolescence, took a variety of forms. Some were elaborate, involved considerable expense for the family of the girl, engaged the entire community, and took months to complete. In other societies, the observance was brief, involved only a few female relatives, and was somewhat private.

In the ceremony of the Bemba of east Africa as reported by Richards (1956), men actually had specific roles to perform in the initiation. In many other societies, men are banned from even seeing the ritual. Among the Bemba, there were tests of competence for the initiates, and it was believed that their roles as food providers would be performed with the appropriate, womanly attitude after the completion of the long, elaborate ceremony. (In contrast, our own educational system typically focuses on transmitting skills and tends to neglect training for the proper attitude toward work.) Several ceremonies performed in other traditional societies included a painful genital operation, but most female initiation rites provided instruction, often regarding sexual activity, as well as a period of seclusion during which the initiate had to observe a number of taboos. These rites were typically followed by feasting, receiving gifts and new clothes, and being declared beautiful and ready for marriage negotiations to begin.

The life course of women can be viewed as discontinuous even if no ritual activity creates a major change in what it means to be a woman. Thus the end of virginity, menarche, the arrival of children, and menopause are one and all irreversible phases of womanhood that are not only physical but also have psychological and cultural meaning. The recognition or lack of recognition a society provides for these physiologic milestones in the lives of women varies cross-culturally. Thus, for example, as reported by Meigs (1984), the Hua of Papua New Guinea were a society in which not only the physiological changes characteristic of the female life course but also culturally constructed changes without a biological basis created a fluid definition for Hua womanhood. The body of Hua women and girls were believed to be filled with a vital essence that was both polluting and to some degree dangerous to men and that was transmitted to men through each act of sexual intercourse and through the food that women handled, prepared, and served. The essence was drained from women’s bodies in the act of childbirth. Thus an older woman, the mother of several children, became as pure as a man, while aging men became impure like women. Because many older women were pure like men, they could have access to the great men’s house, which was forbidden to women and children. Unlike them, she might have participated in male activities and had access to secret male knowledge. Thus among the Hua, the meaning of womanhood was not based only on physiological changes that characterize the female life course but depended on the culturally constructed definitions assigned to these female life courses stages.

THE SECOND VARIABLE: SOCIETY

In many societies the definition of womanhood is shaped by the view that women are physically weaker and intellectually inferior to men, as well as spiritually underendowed. In some societies the definition must take account of the fact that women are viewed as naturally lecherous and wanton. Rape, wife abuse, and even murder are viewed as justifiable responses to these female tendencies. Women’s sexual impulses are corrupting to men and constantly threaten the honor of the family, requiring the unremitting vigilance of a brother or a husband. Women of childbearing age in such societies must be restrained by perpetual chaperonage, by the alert supervision of elder female kin, and by confinement, an enforced claustration, lived in the company of other women.

In spite of the negative valuation that was part of the definition of women in many societies, there was also evidence of envy by men. Among the Inuit of the central Arctic, women’s lives were confined to the igloo during the long winter. Unconfined, the men ranged freely from the camp to hunt and fish, yet they envied the shelter and warmth of the women’s indoor life. An attempt to imitate women that may have been based on envy was the periodic self-inflicted bleeding practiced by the men of several Melanesian societies. In a private ritual, a man would scrape his penis to induce bleeding, an imitation of women’s menstruation, which was believed to provide strength and well-being. An example of a positive valuation of women comes from the traditional Native American societies of the Gulf region, where there were separate languages for men and women and men felt the women’s language was more beautiful than their own.

Women’s Economic Role Whether or not the men of a particular society envy women, or whether or not the members of a society subscribe to a definition of womanhood that attributes inferiority to women, or whether or not members of a society have a more egalitarian view of the sexes, womanhood is inevitably defined in part by the work women perform (unlike our own society, where it would be unusual for a definition of womanhood to include references to specific vocations.) Thus among the traditional Iroquois of New York State, raising the crops upon which the people’s livelihood depended was the work of women. A man working in the gardens was either too old and too frail for male activity or he was a prisoner of war compelled to perform humiliating, inappropriate work. Thus, for example, the Iroquois “made women” out of the defeated Delaware by making them work in their gardens. Yet the productivity of the Iroquois women was revered. Female spiritual beings represented the crops, and ceremonial activity celebrated the cultivated foods provided by women, not the hunting and warfare of the men.

Competence in woman’s work was valued so highly in many traditional societies that it overshadowed sexual attractiveness in the choice of a wife. Thus, among the Iroquois and the traditional Inuit, an older competent woman might be viewed as a desirable wife for a far younger man. Productivity, diligence, and highly developed female skills were among the qualities that were accorded the privilege of being a “manly hearted woman” among the North Piegan, a Canadian Blackfoot tribe, according to Lewis (1970). Although most married women in this society served as lower or “slave wives,” the “manly hearted woman” was the “sit-by wife.” She was not masculine, as the title might suggest; instead she excelled in women’s work and was therefore an economic asset. She was the favorite wife, actively sexual and outspoken. Lower wives were beaten mercilessly for such behavior in traditional times.

As reported by Elam (1973), the traditional Hima, east African herders, further illustrate how the work women perform and their sex life define womanhood in a particular society. In traditional times, Hima girls joined the herders with their cattle outside the village. They acted as assistants to the men in activities such as milking. They were physically active and free to move about the landscape and were expected to be chaste until marriage. The wife, in contrast, was confined to the hut. Unlike girls, she was heavily clothed and her diet and lack of physical activity were intended to make her fat, which was viewed as sexually attractive. Fat and desirable, she was expected to grant sexual favors to numerous men, including her father-in-law. Unlike girls, she was forbidden to milk, bleed, or slaughter cattle. In her life as a woman, she was by definition confined, and her work consisted of making butter and curd and keeping the milk jugs clean.

Women’s Spirituality In many societies, the definition of womanhood that pertains to most of a woman’s life, the childbearing years, appears to exclude the possibility of spirituality. Thus among the traditional !Kung of southern Africa, pregnancy and lactation were viewed as incompatible with trance, since such spiritual activity could harm the unborn child or the nursing infant. In parts of North America, a woman could become a shaman, and a spiritual being would enable her to attain special powers. But in many societies only a man could be a shaman. Among the Navajo, it was believed that the evil powers of witchcraft were inaccessible to a woman of childbearing age. Thus the ability to exert spiritual power or the absence of this ability is noted in the definition of womanhood in many societies. In contrast, spiritual attributes are typically not part of a definition of womanhood in our own society.

THE THIRD VARIABLE: HISTORIC FACTORS

A society’s definition of womanhood inevitably evolves to reflect historical changes. This is as true for our own society as it is cross-culturally. In the later twentieth century, historical changes have created a redefinition of womanhood in the Western/industrial world that is almost as dramatic as the redefinition of womanhood created by the end of colonialism and the spread of globalization in those parts of the world that are not part of our own tradition. An example of such changes is offered by Draper (1975) in her description of the !Kung of southern Africa. Their traditional way of life had continued into the mid-twentieth century, and although aware of the outside world (a world that mistakenly believed they were extinct), they had retained a traditional definition of womanhood. The women of the !Kung sustained the life of the small, migratory camps with their food-gathering activities. Each day that the women set out into the Kalahari Desert, they were successful in harvesting the vegetable foods that constituted the major portion of the !Kung diet. While collecting, the women also gathered information about the movement of animals, which they provided to the men to help them in their hunting. The hunting activities of the men, though less frequently successful than the gathering activities of the women, received a great deal of cultural attention and provided the food that was harder to obtain, made up less of the diet, and was more highly valued. Although the gathering activities of women were not accorded particular recognition, women had the right to be outspoken, and the relationship between men and women was markedly egalitarian. These traditional circumstances have been attributed to women’s economic importance. And this in turn was made possible by a benign environment, in which women were not threatened by enemy neighbors or wild animals that might have made male protection necessary. Their autonomy made possible the traditional !Kung women’s role as the “major breadwinners.”

Dramatic and rapid changes occurred when the !Kung became sedentary, living on the outskirts of the villages of herders, who now controlled the region. !Kung women became housewives. The open camps were replaced by huts which isolated women from relatives and neighbors. Their economic importance was a thing of the past, as was their autonomy. Wife abuse was now a problem. This vastly oversimplified history of the !Kung during the later twentieth century illustrates how a particular society’s definition of womanhood can undergo dramatic change. Although still living in their homeland, their new circumstances totally altered how “woman” was defined.

CONCLUSION

The definition of “woman” is only partially based on the physical traits that differentiate the sexes. Superimposed on physiological reality is the possibility that a society may recognize more than two genders. In addition, the definition a culture constructs for the term “woman” may change during different stages of the life course, for example, by not including the category “uninitiated female adolescent” as part of the definition of “woman.” Different societies also vary on which aspect of womanhood the culture stresses in its definition. Is it her economic role? Is it her maternal role? Is it her sexual role? Is it her domestic role? (For a review of the interrelationships of these factors, see Brown 1973.) Or perhaps it is her physical or mental inferiority and lack of spirituality compared to men. Historical changes can alter a society’s definition. And all of these possible aspects of a society’s definition of “woman” can be interdependent and influence each other. The cross-culturally applicable definition of any concept is inevitably complicated, but the necessary ingredients of the varied definitions can be identified.

SEE ALSO Anthropology; Cultural Relativism; Femininity; Feminism; Feminism, Second Wave; Gender; Gender, Alternatives to Binary; Matriarchy; Patriarchy; Rites of Passage; Rituals; Womanism; Women and Politics; Women’s Liberation; Women’s Movement; Work and Women

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, Judith K. 1973. The Subsistence Activities of Women and the Socialization of Children. Ethos 1: 413–423.

Draper, Patricia. 1975. !Kung Women: Contrasts in Sexual Egalitarianism in Foraging and Sedentary Contexts. In Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna R. Reiter, 77–109. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Elam, Itzchak. 1973. The Social and Sexual Roles of Hima Women: A Study of Nomadic Cattle Breeders in Nyabushozi County, Ankole, Uganda. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press.

Lewis, Oscar. 1970. Manly-Hearted Women among the North Piegan. In Anthropological Essays, ed. Oscar Lewis, 213–230. New York: Random House.

Meigs, Anna. 1984. Food, Sex and Pollution: A New Guinea Religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Richards, Audrey. 1956. Chisungu: A Girls’ Initiation Ceremony among the Bemba of Northern Rhodesia. New York: Grove.

Judith K. Brown

HUSBAND AND WIFE

A man and woman who are legally married to one another and are thereby given by law specific rights and duties resulting from that relationship.

The U.S. legal concept of marriage is founded in English common law. Under common law, when a man and woman married, they became a single person in the eyes of the law—that person being the husband. The duties and benefits afforded a married woman, as well as the restrictions on her freedom, reflected this view. Even today, although the Equal Protection Clause provides that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" (U.S. Const. amend. 14, § 1), the U.S. Supreme Court has never interpreted this to mean that states must treat husbands and wives the same.

There is a strong public policy in favor of marriage. Because of this, a husband and wife are not always able to determine their duties and privileges toward one another; instead, these rights and responsibilities are set forth by special legal principles that define the parameters within which husbands and wives must act.

Support

Under common law, because it was unusual for a wife to have a job and earn her own money, a husband was obliged to provide his wife with "necessaries"—which included food, clothing, and shelter—but only the necessities he deemed appropriate. Today, judges have taken the support obligation further and construed the term necessary to include any item in furtherance of an established standard of living.

Most jurisdictions make it a criminal offense for a spouse to fail to meet a support obligation. Criminal nonsupport statutes are created to prevent men and women from becoming public charges and are most frequently applied upon the dissolution of a marriage when a spouse does not meet alimony and child support obligations. Actions for support are rarely initiated by men although today an equal obligation of support applies.

Property

Historically, wives were at a disadvantage as property owners. At common law, when a woman married, her personal possessions were considered to be the property of her husband. In addition, the husband was entitled to use the land she owned or subsequently inherited, and to retain rents and profits obtained from it. A married woman's right to own property was not incorporated into U.S. law until the mid-nineteenth century, with the Married Women's Property Acts. These laws allowed husbands to permit their spouses to own separate property. Women were also granted the right to enter contracts, sell land, write wills, sue and be sued, work without their husband's permission and keep their earnings, and in certain jurisdictions sue for injuries caused by their husbands.

Ordinarily, questions of who owns what property are brought to court only when a couple is obtaining a divorce. Courts are otherwise reluctant to become involved in property disputes between a husband and wife. Various systems exist in the United States to determine who owns property in a marriage: a majority of states recognize separate property, whereas some adhere to community property or equitable distribution doctrines.

The rule in separate-property states is that each person owns whatever items are in his or her name. In these states, various types of joint spousal ownership are recognized. A tenancy by the entirety is a form of joint ownership whereby the husband and wife own all the property together. This type of arrangement ordinarily applies to real estate. In a tenancy by the entirety, neither spouse can sell the property or his or her interest in it independently. If the husband or wife dies, the remaining spouse has full survivorship rights.

In states that adhere to community property laws, the husband and wife are each given an equal interest in everything they own with the exception of the separate property of either individual. A majority of the property obtained by a husband and wife during a marriage is considered community property. State law defines precisely what is considered separate property. In general, separate property includes whatever each party brought to the marriage and anything either spouse individually inherits during the marriage.

Equitable distribution is a method of property distribution that considers both the economic and noneconomic contributions of each spouse to the marital relationship, as well as each spouse's needs. It is based on the theory that a marriage should be regarded as a partner-ship of equal individuals.

Disputes over property ownership may arise when one spouse dies. A majority of jurisdictions have eliminated the common-law rights of dower and curtesy, which require that a spouse receive a specific portion of an estate. As an alternative, when one party leaves a will that disinherits her or his spouse, the survivor ordinarily has the right to acquire an elective share of the estate, which typically amounts to approximately one-third of its value. In some jurisdictions, this right is given only to a surviving wife. Elective shares do not prevent the dissipation of an estate prior to death.

In separate-property states, if a husband or wife dies intestate (without leaving a will), statutes provide for the surviving spouse to acquire a specified portion of the decedent's property. A statute might, for example, prescribe that the surviving spouse can acquire a one-half interest in the estate. The size of the portion depends on whether there are surviving children.

The distribution of property between a husband and wife might also be affected by a pre-marital agreement, also called an antenuptial or prenuptial agreement. Premarital agreements are typically entered into by a man and woman before they are married, to arrange for the distribution or preservation of property owned by each spouse in the event of divorce or death.

Sexual Relationship

The most unique aspects of the relationship between a husband and wife are the legal sanctions attached to their sexual relationship. A number of states will grant a divorce based on the ground that a husband or wife was denied sex by his or her spouse. Similarly, an individual is ordinarily able to obtain an annulment if his or her spouse is unable to engage in sexual relations. The right of the state to interfere with the marital sexual relationship is limited by the U.S. Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

In the landmark case of griswold v. connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1678, 14 L. Ed. 2d 510 (1965), the Court held that state statutes cannot unreasonably intrude into the marital sexual relationship. In this case, Connecticut was not allowed to enforce a statute that made it a crime for a physician to counsel married people on birth control. This was viewed as an unreasonable intrusion into the marital sexual relationship, since the sanctity of the marital relationship would be invaded if the statute were enforced. The Court emphasized the significance and constitutional considerations of privacy in marriage.

It was once thought that the degree of privacy to which a married couple is entitled could be restricted. Although some state statutes have used this reasoning to attempt to prohibit certain sex acts between a husband and wife, such as anal and oral sex, most courts have maintained that married couples have a constitutional privacy right over their marital sexual activities (Lovisi v. Zahradnick, 429 U.S. 977, 97 S. Ct. 485, 50 L. Ed. 2d 585 [1976] [mem]).

A husband and wife have the right to purchase and use birth control devices—although when an individual uses contraceptives or becomes sterilized contrary to his or her spouse's wishes, this might provide grounds for annulment or divorce.

abortion has been viewed as an additional restriction on the sexual rights of a husband and wife. A wife's right to choose abortion takes precedence over the husband-and-wife relation-ship. A husband may not preclude his wife from having a legal abortion, nor may he compel her to have one. The Supreme Court struck down statutory requirements that a husband must be notified of his wife's abortion, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 112 S. Ct. 2791, 120 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1992).

At one time, a husband was allowed to have sexual relations with his wife with or without her consent, and for many years, courts supported a marital exception to laws against rape. Under current law, the fact that the accused party and the victim were husband and wife can no longer be used as a defense to criminal charges. Violent assaults on a spouse are illegal in all states. A savage rape attack by a husband on his wife might be subject to prosecution as an assault or, in some cases, as an attempted murder.

Crimes

Common law put many restrictions on a husband and wife when crimes occurred between them or against the marriage relationship itself. At one time, the courts recognized lawsuits based on heart balm acts. In such an action, a husband asserted that a monetary recovery would salve the "broken heart" caused by a third party's intrusion into his marriage. The basis for many of these causes of action was that a husband was being denied his rights to the affections and services of his wife; these lawsuits did not extend to a wife.

A husband once had an actionable injury if anyone induced his wife to leave him, under the theory that he was entitled to sue for damages any person who divested him of a servant. Similarly, a husband was able to bring an action for criminal conversation if his wife voluntarily engaged in adultery. The theory was that criminal conversation interferes with a husband's exclusive privilege to obtain sexual services from his wife. The basis of recovery is the public policy in favor of preserving marriage and the family. Alienation of affection is another seldom prosecuted action. In this type of action, a husband must prove that another man won his wife away from him, thereby depriving him of love, comfort, and companionship.

Because of the theories that gave rise to such causes of action, very few jurisdictions recognize lawsuits based on heart balm acts.Yet, even today, tort law retains some special rules for husbands and wives when an outsider causes injury to the marital or family relationship. Consortium is the marital relationship between two people that encompasses their mutual right to support, cooperation, and companionship. An action for loss of consortium is based on the inconvenience of having a debilitated spouse. Husbands and wives have won suits for damages for injuries to their spouse precipitated by such things as medical malpractice, automobile accidents, false imprisonment, and wrongful death.

Under common law, a husband was held responsible for any crimes committed by his wife against a third party. Although a wife had responsibility for crimes she committed, there was a legal presumption that her husband compelled her to perform any act she undertook when he was present. Today, husbands and wives are equally liable for their own criminal actions.

Privileged Communication

The law of evidence includes a privilege extended to a married couple so that neither a husband nor a wife can be compelled to testify against a spouse. This rule was designed to protect intrafamily relations and privacy. In addition, it was meant to promote communication between husbands and wives by making revelations between them strictly confidential.

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Trammel v. United States, 445 U.S. 40, 100 S. Ct. 906, 63 L. Ed. 2d 186, held that husbands and wives were permitted to testify against one another voluntarily in a federal criminal prosecution. Many states now allow a spouse to testify against a husband or wife, but with the caveat that the testimony is subject to the accused spouse's consent. Other states view the spouse of an accused person as an ordinary witness who can be forced to testify against the accused person.

Domestic Abuse

It was once presumed that a husband should have the right to exert physical control over his wife, if only to protect himself from liability for his wife's actions. Therefore, common law permitted a husband to discipline his wife physically. Interspousal tort immunity made it impossible for a wife to succeed in an action against her husband. It was rare for a wife to accuse her husband of a crime, and a wife was forbidden to testify against her husband. Today, a wife is almost always permitted to testify against a husband who has been accused of causing intentional injury to her or their child. With interspousal tort immunity all but abrogated in most jurisdictions, husbands and wives can now recover in suits against one another under the theories of fraudulent misrepresentation, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence.

The common-law right of a husband to discipline his wife combined with interspousal tort immunity prevented incidents of domestic abuse from becoming public. In addition, victims of domestic abuse often did not reveal the extent of their injuries for fear of reprisals. Little legal relief was available, as courts were hesitant to interfere in the husband-and-wife relationship. With the abrogation of interspousal tort immunity, the U.S. public has become aware of domestic abuse as a nationwide issue.

In some cases, victims of domestic abuse who have injured or killed their spouse as a means of self-defense against violence and abuse have been acquitted of criminal charges. The battered spouse syndrome is a defense these men and women have asserted. The syndrome, a subcategory of post-traumatic stress disorder, seeks to explain why some spouses remain in abusive relationships and others finally use violence to break out of such relationships. Because battered women are typically economically dependent on their husband, they hesitate to seek help until the violence escalates to the point where they believe the only way to free themselves is to kill their abuser.

Same-Sex Marriage

In the 1980s and early 1990s, lawsuits were initiated to expand the traditional husband-and-wife relationship, and the rights and privileges that relationship conveys, to partners of the same sex. In a landmark case, Baehr v. Lewin, 74 Haw. 645, 852 P.2d 44 (1993), the Hawaii Supreme Court, although rejecting the idea that the Hawaii Constitution gives same-sex couples a fundamental right to marriage, held that Hawaii's marriage statute (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 572-1) discriminates on the basis of sex by barring people of the same sex from marrying. As a result, such statutes are subject to strict scrutiny. However, in 1998 Hawaiian voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that, while not banning same-sex marriage, gave the legislature the power to restrict marriages to opposite-sex couples.

In 1996, largely in response to Baehr, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (110 Stat. § 2419), which defines marriage as "a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife." The term spouse is defined as a "person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife." In effect, the Defense of Marriage Act states that the federal government does not acknowledge same-sex marriages.

In 2001, however, Vermont became the first state to enact a law recognizing "civil unions" between same-sex couples (23 V.S.A. § 1201 et seq. [2000]). The 2000 law came in response to a 1999 Vermont Supreme Court ruling (Baker v. Vermont, 170 Vt. 194, 744 A.2d 864 [1999]), which found that the benefits and protections guaranteed by the Vermont Constitution for opposite-sex couples extend to same-sex couples. Benefits and protections include access to a spouse's medical, life, and disability insurance; hospital visitation, and other medical decisionmaking privileges; spousal support; and the ability to inherit property from a deceased spouse without a will.

further readings

Chriss, Margaret J. 1993. "Troubling Degrees of Authority: The Continuing Pursuit of Unequal Marital Roles." Law & Inequality Journal 12 (December).

Hartog, Hendrik. 2000. Man and Wife in America: A History. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press.

Keane, Thomas M. 1995. "Aloha, Marriage? Constitutional and Choice of Law Arguments for Recognition of Same-Sex Marriages." Stanford Law Review 47 (February).

Nickles, Don. 1996."Defense of Marriage Act." Congressional Record 142.

"Same-Sex Marriages and Civil Unions: On Meaning, Free Exercise, and Constitutional Guarantees." 2002. Loyola Law Journal 33.

Waggoner, Lawrence W. 1994. "Marital Property Rights in Transition." Missouri Law Review 59 (winter).

Wanamaker, Laura H. 1994. "Waite v. Waite: The Florida Supreme Court Abrogates the Doctrine of Interspousal Immunity." Mercer Law Review 45 (winter).

cross-references

Domestic Violence; Family Law; Gay and Lesbian Rights.

Women

Sources

Feminization of Faith. During the mid nineteenth-century, women made up the majority of those attending church in every state and denomination, regardless of their formal affiliation. Women provided substantial financial support, either by giving of their own money or by forming groups that raised funds. In many denominations they gave of their labor as well. Finally, women provided the model for all the faithful. They supposedly felt or intuited their faith, rather than coming to it from study and intellectual effort, which in turn made it easier for them to empathize with people and to help them with their troubles.

Female Virtues. The Civil War changed many things, but not the gendered view of religion. In comparison to men, women were considered more religious, receptive to emotional experience, and pure. Women did not sully themselves in the competitive, even cutthroat, world of business. They were also more virtuous. Women were supposed to be passionless, not particularly interested in sex. Historical perspective, however, makes it easier to see that these traits were not innate, but were constructed by circumstances and social norms.

Middle-Class Standards. The ideal of femininity was widely publicized but not always observed. For example, Harriet Jacobs, who took the pen name Linda Brent, countered the prevailing ethos of the day. In 1861 she produced a memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which described the anguish felt by women whose churches taught them the importance of chastity but whose lives made the ideal impossible to attain. Jacobs recalled that when she became an adolescent, her owner began to harass her sexually. To evade him, she fostered a liaison with another slaveowner, by whom she had two children. Her strategy did not work; in fact, her owner became more abusive. She then hid in the garret of the house of her free grandmother for seven years, until she could escape north. Meanwhile, the slaveowner with whom she was carrying on an affair purchased her two children (who belonged to her master) and freed them. Despite her partner’s willingness to help her family become free, Jacobs still felt ashamed for having had intercourse outside of marriage and having resorted to using sex as a means to other ends.

The Power of Ideas. Middle-class women had more opportunities to live up to the ideals of religious womanhood. The promulgation of those ideals changed their lives and gave some impetus to women’s liberal education, preparing females to take their place in the larger world. Even if most of them were going to be wives and mothers, they had to be well educated to influence their husbands for the good and to supervise their own children’s education. Thus, concepts of greater female religiosity shaped the curriculum offerings in female seminaries. People associated seminaries with religious training (the word comes from a Latin term for “seedbed”), thus conveying the idea that at this school knowledge was not just transferred from teacher to pupil but the students grew, morally and intellectually. Catharine Beecher started from the same premises of feminine faithfulness but drew different conclusions for women’s education. She reasoned that if women were naturally different from men, they needed different education. As housekeepers they needed manuals that taught them how to make their

households fit places for religious families, and Beecher authored one of the first such manuals. If women were naturally the first teachers of little children, then they ought to be trained for teaching; they could practice on their own children, and, if they never married, they would have a profession with which to support themselves.

Homemakers. The changing concept of religious womanhood also altered households; it even changed the furnishings. During this era some families had reed organs for their homes so that they could sing hymns. Women filled their homes with religious symbols. Bibles did not go on bookshelves but on special stands so that in between readings they could still remind family members of God’s word. Protestant women introduced crosses into their homes, decorated with seasonal flowers. Catholic women traditionally kept statues of saints or images of Christ and Mary in their homes. Jewish households also accommodated nineteenth-century concepts of women’s greater faithfulness, as women traditionally took a role in the Sabbath and Passover celebrations. Most Protestant denominations retained the idea that the man of the household ought to lead the prayers, but they increasingly replaced family prayers with activities for mothers and children alone. Mothers read Bible stories to their children, catechizing gently as they read.

Outside the Home. The idea that women were naturally religious and too pure for the sordid world also functioned to expand their role to places outside the home. One of these places was Sunday school. The first American Sunday schools were modeled on English traditions, in which poor children who worked six days of the week came to Sunday school to try to catch up on their education. As more Americans gained access to public schools, Sunday school in the United States became specifically religious. By the middle of the nineteenth century each denomination had its own Sunday schools, but the legacy of earlier unity could be seen in the similar format across denominational lines. Older adolescents and young people, mostly females, taught Sunday school. Some churches had special classrooms for the purpose. Teachers told Bible stories and taught catechism to those too young to read; older children were

supposed to read on their own. The importance of God’s words in Scripture made teachers emphasize rote memorization, which was encouraged by awarding prizes for recitation. Teaching in such a setting was a common rite of passage for many young women.

The Overland Trail. Married women were responsible for maintaining Christian households wherever they went. One experience of religious housekeeping that was unique to the nineteenth century was maintaining the family’s faith while crossing the continent in a covered wagon. The main issue was travel on the Sabbath. This counted as work and a violation of one of the Ten Commandments. On the other hand, the journey could take up to six months with or without a weekly day of rest. Also, there was no guarantee that each Saturday evening would find the wagon train near enough water and grass for the animals for a one-day stop. Some wagon trains did stop on Sunday, but not to observe the Sabbath; rather, both people and animals traveled better with a regularly scheduled day of rest. Even then these wagon trains did not cease all work on the Sabbath. When the column halted the women had to cook, launder, and clean out the wagons. The sacrifice of the Sabbath was a burden added to all the physical hardships of the journey.

Careers in Religion. The first American Protestant woman to go abroad to spread her faith was Ann Hasseltine Judson in 1912. Thereafter, a small but steady stream of American women went to the Middle East, the Orient, and Hawaii. They had experiences they never would have had at home. They not only learned but used other languages, becoming so competent that they could teach and translate in their adopted tongue. They taught women and children, visited people in their homes, provided medical care, and dealt with practices that not only conflicted with their own denominational teachings but seemed contrary to wider moral standards as well, such as binding the feet of Chinese girls. They converted few people, which did not discourage them, since most believed that God, not their own efforts, would bring about conversion in good time. Unfortunately, they were very much unappreciated at the time. Married women were not recognized as missionaries at all; in fact, it was Ann Judson’s husband, Adoniram, who bore the title “missionary.” Unmarried women were paid only a third of what men were paid.

Home Missions. During the Civil War another field began to open for women. Their religious organizations were structures through which they could provide assistance to men at war. They could raise funds for the sick, make or collect clothing and medical equipment, and consign their donations to a nurse going to the theater ot war. After the war, former slaves needed assistance, and the women who went south to teach and to work among former slaves faced some of the same problems as foreign missionaries. Although the women knew much about charitable work and teaching, the missionary associations appointed men to supervise. The agencies also sometimes used the idea of sacrifice to browbeat the missionaries into making do with tight budgets and a monotonous, if adequate, diet. Also, the whole missionary experiment lasted only a dozen years, until the federal government abandoned Reconstruction. In those twelve years scores of young women went south to teach, to distribute donated clothing, and to assist former slaves in living free lives. After Reconstruction the agencies went on to mission fields elsewhere in the United States, such as Indian reservations in the West and new urban ghettos.

Religious Women. For Catholics, joining a community of religious women was an honorable alternative to marriage. In Europe there were two kinds of communities of religious women. The older type were nuns, who took solemn perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and lived in cloistered communities, meaning people rarely visited and few inmates went out for any purpose. The women devoted themselves to achieving spiritual perfection through prayer. They supported themselves by investing the dowries they had brought with them when they entered the convent, by donations, and sometimes by work done on their lands. The second groups were sisters who took the same vows but took them in a simpler format, because in addition to their desire for a religious life, they were committed to some charitable activity. They could leave their cloisters to teach, nurse, and tend the poor and needy. In the United States, the difference between the two groups blurred. There were few wealthy Catholics to make big donations, few women able to present dowries, and much work to be done. Even historically cloistered nuns were asked to teach. Because religious women were less independent in the United States, bishops and priests tried to direct women’s community life to meet the diocesan and parish needs. Thus, the religious women had to decide how much to live up to the historical commitments of their respective communities and how much to concede to the bishops and clergy with whom they worked.

Opportunities in Convents. Despite the difference in power between men and women in Catholicism, religious women had opportunities. The need for teachers, nurses, social-service workers, and administrators meant the women had to further their education. The fact that these were predominantly female professions also meant that nuns occupied the highest ranks, becoming superiors of communities and administrators of hospitals, schools, orphanages and asylums. Sister Blandina Segale was just one example of the world that opened up to women when they entered the convent. Born in Genoa, Italy, in 1850, she migrated to the United States with her family as a young girl and joined the Sisters of Charity in Cincinnati when she was seventeen. She spent twenty-seven years At the End of the Santa Fe Trail, as she titled her memoirs (1932), founding schools and working in communities without many other civic institutions. When she finished this work, she began a second career among Italian immigrants then moving to Cincinnati in large numbers. She and her blood sister, Justina Segale, also a Cincinnati Sister of Charity, founded a settlement house, Casa Maria, to tend to the needs of immigrant children and their families.

A MEETING OF MINISTERS

This is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s account of a meeting between the African American preacher Sojourner Truth and several clergymen, including Mrs. Stowe’s father, the Reverend Dr. Lyman Beecher.

“Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher.”

“Is he?” she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. “Ye dear lamb, I’m glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I’m a kind o’ preacher myself.”

“You are?” said Dr. Beecher. “Do you preach from the Bible?”

“No, honey, can’t preach from de Bible — can’t read a letter.”

“Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?”

Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room.

“When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an’ I always preaches from this one. My text is When I Found Jesus!”’

“Well, you couldn’t have a better one,” said one of the ministers.

Source: Harriet Beecher Stowe, “Sojourner Truth: The Libyan Sibyl,” Atlantic Monthly, 11 (April 1863): 473-478.

Other Choices. Mid-nineteenth-century Catholicism tended to have either/or choices for women: one could enter the convent or could marry and bear children. Women who did not do either found little support in their communities. Mary Anne Sadlier, who wrote fiction for the American Catholic middle class, dealt with these issues in her novels. In fact, the plots and characters of her books all point to the same conclusion. Catholic women realized that they had to fit into divine plans; if married, their duty was to stay quietly at home, raise children, provide emotional support for their husbands, and accept that this was God’s way of securing human happiness. According to Catholics only Protestant women went gadding about seeking to overturn divine order with their cries for reform, especially woman’s rights.

Faith and Feminism. Some faiths had doctrines that encouraged women to take a larger role in the world outside the home and structures that provided ways for them to do so. The best example was the Society of Friends, or Quakers. The Quakers believed that Christ dwelled within the individual Christian, providing an Inner Light that guided one’s conscience. Since the Inner Light was the same in every Quaker, anyone could take a public role in life. Moreover, since the Inner Light guided everyone’s conscience, anyone could be involved in the great moral questions of the day, such as slavery and woman’s rights. However, some Quakers measured the Inner Light and individual inspiration against the Scriptures, and thus limited women’s public activity. For the reformer Elizabeth Cady Stanton, institutionalized religion undermined women. Only men could be ministers, and these men interpreted the Scriptures in ways that discriminated against women. For a woman of Stanton’s leanings, religion was a hindrance, not a help, to furthering female interests, a sentiment which continued into the 1880s and 1890s.

Sources

Margaret Hope Bacon, Mothers of Feminism: The Story of Quaker Women in America (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986);

Anne M. Boylan, Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution, 1790-1880 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988);

Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1978);

Jacqueline Jones, Soldiers of Light and Love: Northern Teachers and Georgia Blacks, 1865-1873 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992);

Colleen McDannell, The Christian Home in Victorian America, 1840-1900 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986);

Katheryn Kish Sklar, Catharine Beecher: A Study in American Domesticity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).

Women. The status of women in religions has, in the past, been tied closely to the reproductive cycle, both that of humans, and that of crops and herds. The controls of evolution and of natural selection (of course not known or understood) established boundaries within which, either the replication of genes and the nurture of children succeeded, or the family/group/community/village went to extinction. Religions, as the earliest cultural systems of which we know, have created strong protections for replication and nurture, often by way of controls over behaviour—hence the preoccupation of religions with sexual behaviours and food. Characteristically, societies developed a necessary division of labour, based on biology but extended symbolically, with women responsible for the upbringing of the family and for related activities in preparation of food (both in cooking and in the fields), and with men relating to a wider environment, e.g. in hunting, warfare, political relations. The feminine is thus often celebrated in religions as the source of life and gift of fertility. There is some (disputed) evidence that the feminine, as Mother Goddess, was the primordial focus of worship: at a time when the male contribution to reproduction was not realized, this is unsurprising. Equally unsurprising (from a genetic point of view) is the way in which men consequently took control of the reproductive cycle. That control is mirrored in the increasing dominance of patriarchal religion. Even in India, where the feminine has remained central in worship, and where the Goddess may still be the single focus of devotion for many Hindus, the Goddess on her own is usually destructive and fierce, and only fruitful in relation to a consort, such as Śiva. The subordination of women to men became widespread in all religions: exceptions are very much exceptions to the rule. Combined with profound fears about the dangers surrounding sexuality (elaborated in complex ritual customs to deal with ‘purity and danger’, the title of a relevant study by Mary Douglas), this led to literal separations of women from men, especially in worship (for example, in synagogue or mosque or in the Roman Catholic refusal of the ordination of women, or, until 1992, of girl servers near the altar).

While it is true that the increasing emancipation of women in many parts of the world has led to major adjustments in the place accorded to women in most religions, the phrase ‘place accorded to’ reveals the continuing truth: men remain predominantly in control and allow some women some greater access to authority and decision-making. A classic example was the ‘Letter to All Women’ issued by Pope John Paul II in 1995. While it was remarkable in apologizing for the oppressive record of the Church in relation to women, the document as a whole adopted the usual male strategy of congratulating women on the gifts of their characteristic natures, while at the same time making it clear that those natures prohibited women from undertaking certain roles reserved for men.

Judaism

The Hebrew scriptures teach that woman was created as a ‘helper’ to men (Genesis 2. 23–4). Her chief duty was to be child-bearing (Genesis 3. 16), and a good wife and mother was cause for praise (Proverbs 31. 28). The rabbis exempted women from all timebound positive commandments (see SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN COMMANDMENTS) (Kid. 1. 7), and female education was not encouraged. In 1994, a Commission, convened by the Chief Rabbi of the UK, issued a far-ranging report on the status of women in Orthodox Judaism, recommending that the exclusion of women from kaddish, the separation of women from men in synagogue by mechitzah (‘partition’) should be ended or modified, and that a prenuptial covenant, guaranteeing the supply of the get (bill of divorce: see MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE, JUDAISM) in the case of divorce, should be supplied. Progressive Jews stress the absolute equality of men and women and have female as well as male rabbis, cantors, and synagogue leaders. See also NIDDAH.

Christianity

Early Christianity was an egalitarian movement in which women played a prominent part. Not only did Jesus give and receive much in ministry to and from women (with an openness which went against the norms of his day), but women clearly played an important part in the life and running of the early Church. The early churches reaffirmed traditional and cultural attitudes, leading to the continuing subordination of women to the authority of their husbands, and to men in the Church (e.g. 1 Corinthians 14. 34; Ephesians 5. 22 f.; Colossians 3. 18; 1 Timothy 2. 11 f.; Titus 2. 4f.). The Church subsequently has endeavoured (generally speaking) to confirm that subordinate status of women. The Church has thus, historically, admired women from a distance, insisting on their special and higher vocations, while at the same time regarding them as inherently the source of sin, because of their descent from Eve, and certainly not to be admitted to the male preserves of decision-making and priesthood. The Virgin Mary became the role model, calling sexuality into question and exhibiting the way to salvation through perfect obedience. Yet clearly there are many RC and Orthodox Christians who are, despite discouragement, committed to the realization within time of that final vision, in which the Christian attitude to all oppressed groups is summarized, when there shall be ‘neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female’ (Galatians 3. 28).

Islam

In Islam, it is believed that women and men are different but equal. The advent of Islam brought great advantages to the status and protection of women, and women, especially Āisha, played an important part in the early years of Islam, as they have continued to do. Women are not the source of sin (Eve, Ḥawwā, is not named in the Qurān, which makes it clear that both Adam and Eve were equally at fault: see e.g. 2. 36 f.), though they may be the source of particular impurity after childbirth and menstruation. Women, and mothers in particular, are deeply honoured. Women have access to education and retain control of their own property. At the same time, certain inequalities between women and men, together with the fact that some customs have become virtual obligations in some parts of the Muslim world, have raised questions about the implementation of Qurʾān and ḥadīth in this area. Thus the veil (ḥijāb), or more total covering of chaddor, is not required by Qurān, which only commands modesty in dress (24. 31); the widespread practice of female circumcision is not required at all; polygamy is envisaged in the Qurʾān, but not polyandry; men may marry women of the ahl al-Kitāb, but women may not marry such men. In any case, the authority of men over women remains, derived from two verses in particular: having affirmed mutual rights for women, 2. 228 states, ‘But men have darajah over women.’ Darajah means ‘rank’ or ‘degree’ or ‘precedence’, and may simply be restricted to the different ways in which men and women can initiate divorce, but it is often taken in a more general sense. In another verse (4. 34/8), it is said that men are qawwumūn over women (because they have to support them) and that women suspected of ill-conduct must be admonished, banished to their beds, and beaten. Qawwamūn is usually taken to mean ‘standing over’, i.e. having authority; but the meanings of the Qurān are not fixed, and the word may legitimately mean ‘standing in attendance’; and in any case, the beating cannot be painful and is largely symbolic. Even so, for many Muslim women these particular aspects of the assymetry between men and women raise searching questions about the (theoretically possible) rethinking of the meaning of sharīʿa in the spirit of Muḥammad's own support for the worth and dignity of women. As matters stand, the experience of many Muslim women, as they report it, is one of which Muḥammad could scarcely have approved, and which the Qurʾān did not intend.

Hinduism

The status and role of women in Hinduism are complex. At the level of home and society, they are revered, yet at the same time they are dependent on men and are to be guarded by them. In the Dharmaśāstras, they are ritually impure and a source of impurity (and therefore, e.g., not to study or recite mantras): their husbands are their gurus, and their domestic duties are their rituals. Their devotion to their husbands is their highest good (especially if consummated in satī), and yet, according to Manusmṛti 2. 213 f., they are incapable of achieving absolute devotion. Nevertheless, at the same time, feminine images of the divine are more obvious in Hinduism than in other religions (with the possible, but limited, exception of devotion to Mary in Christianity, where she is only associated with the divine). Even then, goddesses usually appear as consorts with male gods, and are beneficial in co-operation with them, otherwise being, in general, destructive. Women are prominent in myths, and in life they have been even more prominent in bhakti (devotion to God). Women are recognized by Hindus as a source of immense power, but they remain, nevertheless, firmly under patriarchal control.

Buddhism

The Buddha's attitude towards women was not radically different from that of his contemporaries: for those pursuing the religious life, women are a temptation and a snare; but in the context of lay society, the role of women as wives and mothers was crucial to the stability of the social order. The Buddha frequently cautioned monks to be on their guard when dealing with women lest they be overcome by lust and craving.

However, from the outset women were allowed to become nuns, although with more severe rules imposed on them. Regarding the role of women in lay life the Buddha upheld the traditional values of his time.

Jainism

The status of women in relation to enlightenment is a specific issue between Digambaras and Śvetāmbaras, with the latter regarding gender as usually irrelevant: see DIGAMBARA.

Sikhism

The recurring image in the Ādi Granth of the soul offering itself to God as a chaste woman surrenders to her husband reveals the traditional relationship. In accordance with the ideal of grahastī, Sikhs are expected to marry, and motherhood is an honoured role. Sikh teaching condemned the once prevalent practices of female infanticide and satī. Women participate in gurdwārā worship and are prominent in preparing Gurū-kālaṅgar. They may read the scriptures publicly or sing, and serve as management committee members.

women. Renaissance and Reformation brought many changes to the role of women, compounded in Ireland by conquest and colonization. The upper classes were most affected. Dynastic marriage, including divorce and remarriage, had given women a central importance in the politics of Gaelic and Anglo‐Irish lordships. In particular circumstances, women, especially those with independent military resources, political connections, or a good education, could lead a lordship and negotiate with the encroaching state. Notable examples are Agnes Campbell, Finola MacDonnell, Grace O'Malley, and Eleanor, countess of Desmond. Such women retained their own surnames and had their own lands for life within the lordship, but in the more centralized state of the 17th century any semblance of independence was lost to a more domesticated role.

The triumph of common law affected women's property rights. Under the Gaelic system women had the right to hold property independently of their husbands, though not the right to inherit or pass on land, because this belonged to the kin group. The goods women brought with them as dowries were regainable on divorce. These, usually livestock and household goods, were an insurance against penury, but Finola's dowry of mercenaries gave her political independence. Under the common law, women had no rights to property independent of their husbands, including their own dowries. The use of jointures did afford women some rights, while the court of chancery enabled divorced women to apply for unreturned dowry goods, heiresses to make claims to family lands, and widows to have lifetime use of their husband's property. This more impersonal system may have favoured poorer women, or at least those with less political power.

Rape, like murder, was no longer a matter of compensation, but a capital offence under English law. However, there was now greater social control exercised over aberrant women such as scolds and witches, although the few such cases in Ireland were confined to the colonial community, reflecting an ethnically divided, sparsely populated country where informal mechanisms of community control remained dominant.

The Protestant and Catholic reformations adversely affected the religious authority of women. Abbesses such as Mary Cusack and Alison White were pensioned off following the dissolution of abbeys and convents. Where convents enjoyed a clandestine existence in the following century, they were now enclosed institutions. Nevertheless women remained influential in religion. Educated Paleswomen are now seen as a key element in the survival of Catholicism in the 1560s and 1570s. But these were in some respects harbingers of the new domestic role to be assigned to women of both religions, centred on catechesis or, for Protestants, Bible reading with their children. During the upheavals of the mid‐17th century Quakerism (see Society of Friends) gave women a public role in religion. But even there patriarchy reasserted itself once the denomination became established, and women retired from the preaching role they had played in its evangelical phase. Women's educational opportunities lessened as convents became contemplative. However, aristocratic and patrician women often had private tutors, and some, like Catherine Boyle, Lady Ranelagh, could make a significant impact in intellectual circles.

The vast majority of women were poor, and their economic role was in childbearing, childrearing, agriculture, and textile production. All classes of women had frequently to survive independently, as widows or with husbands at war. For upper‐class women this meant assuming management of large households, or even estates, as in the case of Elizabeth, wife of the duke of Ormond, during her husband's exile.

The 19th and early 20th centuries saw a gradual improvement in the legal and political status of women, as gender‐based disabilities in the fields of property, guardianship of children, education, and political participation were slowly dismantled. Piecemeal legal reforms, north and south, from the 1920s, and a spate of legislation from 1970, built on some of these earlier reforms, while also, in independent Ireland, undoing some of the attacks on women's employment and citizenship made by the new state in the 1920s and 1930s.

For upper middle‐class women this entire period was characterized by opportunity and broadening horizons; even the idealization of the middle‐class woman in the home, sometimes employed as an argument against female employment and political activity, was also used effectively by female philanthropists and feminists as a justification for extending women's ‘morally superior’ influence into the world of work, especially the ‘caring’ professions. Most Catholic women who were interested in philanthropy entered the ever‐expanding ranks of women religious (see Nuns); Protestant women ran a wide range of philanthropic activities. A small proportion of upper middle‐class women went to university from the late 19th century and the first generation of female university lecturers and professors had a high profile in political life in the first half of the 20th century. Like women working in law, medicine, and accountancy, however, female academics made up only a tiny proportion of Irish working women up to the 1970s.

For other sections of the population change was more gradual, with progress in everyday living conditions lagging well behind improvements in formal political and legal status. Housework remained, up to the 1960s at least, a crushing burden for most people; in 1946 almost half of all Irish dwellings, and 91 per cent of rural households, had no piped water. Motherhood only gradually became less dangerous and less harrowing, notably when the development of health‐care services in the 1940s and 1950s brought about a steady decline in maternal and infant mortality rates. Domestic responsibilities prevented many women from engaging in paid semiskilled or unskilled work, while from the 1920s marriage bars, in both jurisdictions, against women in the public service imposed new restrictions on access to better‐paid employment.

Against this background the pattern of women's employment remained up to the 1950s fairly stable. As late as 1946 women assisting on farms—not farmers' wives, who were enumerated under a different heading—made up the largest group of women in the workforce of independent Ireland. Domestic service (see Servants), shop service, office work, nursing, teaching, and factory work all employed considerable numbers. Female factory workers remained concentrated in the textile mills of Belfast, Derry, and their hinterlands, though there was also factory work for women in the other Irish cities, mostly in food processing and apparel industries.

Home‐based, remunerative work for women also existed in various forms up to the 1950s and 1960s. Farm women generally controlled the poultry, eggs, and butter money. In Ulster, despite the huge loss of domestic employment opportunities caused by the transfer of linen spinning to the factories from the 1820s, other forms of home‐based textile work remained an important source of income for women. Urban and non‐farming women could, depending on resources, keep a shop, dress‐make, take music pupils; poorer women resorted to a variety of strategies to earn income—taking in lodgers (even in one‐room tenements), going out charring, and taking in washing. Women begging, especially when accompanied by children, always received more sympathy than did men, and were less likely to be sent to prison for vagrancy. Nevertheless other institutions—the workhouse, the lunatic asylum, the ‘Magdalen’ home—absorbed increasing numbers of destitute women.

The entire landscape of Irish women's paid work changed almost beyond recognition between 1946 and 1961, as farm work and domestic service, the two largest categories, gave way to office work, teaching, nursing, and shop work. From the mid‐1940s many of the women who would previously have gone into service, or stayed at home as assisting relatives on farms, emigrated instead to Great Britain.

Emigration was not new to Irish women; Irish emigrants to North America, unusually among European emigrants in the years 1870–1930, comprised a very high proportion of young, single women facing a new life in apparent independence of older relatives. Emigration might have meant self‐realization and independence for some, but for a considerable number who went in the late 19th century it represented a long‐distance extension of their family responsibilities as they sent money home to support smallholdings and to bring other family members out. Going to Great Britian in the 1940s and 1950s was more likely to be a fulfilment of individual goals, as young women sought training, comparatively well‐paid work, and, perhaps, marital opportunities lacking at home. Some of those who did not emigrate stayed on at school to compete later for secure white‐collar and professional employment; others benefited from the commercial and industrial growth from the late 1950s which provided jobs in shops and in light industries. The expansion of health services north and south provided further new opportunities for training and work.

Apart from high‐profile individuals, women's involvement in politics and in public life was low key until the late 1960s (see Feminism). The numbers of women in organizations of various kinds were, however, rising from the 1940s, and it would seem that the rapid changes in women's working lives—in the house and outside it—were crucial to their stepped‐up participation in public life in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Bibliography

Luddy, Maria, and and Murphy, Cliona , Women Surviving: Studies in Irish Women's History (1990)
MacCurtain, Margaret, and and O'Dowd, Mary , Women in Early Modern Ireland (1991)
MacCurtain, Margaret and Ó Corráin, D. (eds.), Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension (1978)

HM/ and Hiram Morgan

husband and wife the legal aspects of the married state (for the sociological aspects, see marriage ).

The Marriage Contract

Marriage is a contractual relationship between a man and a woman that vests the parties with a new legal status. Most of the requisites for other binding contracts must also be present in the marriage contract. Thus, the parties must have been competent to act, must have acted free from duress, and must not have made fraudulent representations; otherwise the contract may be dissolved by a judicial decree of nullity of marriage . However, marriage is unlike other contractual relationships in that it creates a status that may not be terminated at will by the parties, but only by a court, as by a divorce . It is thus often said that the state is a third party to any marriage. (Some European nations legally recognize partnerships that, though having some of the legal rights of marriage, are much easier to dissolve.)

With few exceptions, a marriage validly contracted in one place is recognized in others. Thus a common-law marriage—a marriage solely by the consent and behavior of the parties, without ceremony or registration—entered into in a state where such unions are valid will be deemed binding in states where a license to marry and a civil or religious solemnization are required. At an early period, common-law marriages were frequent in Europe; the difficulties arising from them—e.g., the doubtful legitimacy of children—led to their complete prohibition in Roman Catholic countries by the Council of Trent . Although common-law marriage was abolished in England in 1753, it remained lawful in Scotland and in the American colonies. Today, only 11 U.S. states permit the creation of common-law marriages within their borders. A few states have enacted laws permitting covenant marriages, in which premarital counseling is required and extra restrictions make divorce more difficult, but while such marriages are recognized by other states, the limits they place on divorce may not be, because the U.S. Supreme Court has established that the rules governing divorce are determined by the laws of the state of residence at the time of divorce and not of marriage.

Same-sex marriages, with all but a few of the legal aspects of traditional marriages, have recently been recognized in a few European nations. In the United States, local officials have from time to time registered same-sex couples or solemnized their marriages. At present, however, Vermont is the only state that grants any official recognition to a homosexual union. In some places local authorities have established "domestic partner" laws, granted "certificates of cohabitation," or undertaken similar steps in order to afford homosexual (and some other) couples various rights society reserves for marital partners.

Evolution of Marriage Law

The former Anglo-American law of marriage was chiefly characterized by the view that husband and wife are one legal personality, for whom the husband acts. Accordingly, the husband determined the marital domicile and was the dominant figure in the relation of parent and child . Nearly all the property of the wife passed to his absolute control for the duration of the marriage. The wife ordinarily could not make separate contracts, but if her husband refused support to her or to the children, she might pledge his credit to supply needs. After the death of a spouse, the survivor usually enjoyed a partial interest in the deceased's property. The wife's dower entitled her to one third of the husband's property on his death; curtesy, a similar right of the husband in the wife's property, accrued only if children had been born of the marriage.

In time, the equity courts recognized the wife's right during her husband's lifetime to a separate property in trust established for her benefit. By the late 19th cent., the need for a separate trust property disappeared, for Great Britain and all the American states adopted "married women's property" statutes, giving wives complete control over their property and their contracts. Most states provided that, in place of dower and curtesy, a surviving spouse was entitled to a certain share in the estate of the deceased spouse. A few states, following the Spanish law, recognized community property, whereby all property acquired during the marriage is owned by both husband and wife and is divided equally on the dissolution of the marriage.

Other features of the older laws on marriage have persisted, but many have been modified or eliminated. Certain old civil actions for injury to the marital relation that were once available only to the husband, such as actions for criminal conversation (adultery), actions for loss of consortium (marital services) because of physical injury to the wife, and for alienation of the wife's affections, are now either extended to the wife or denied to both parties.

Bibliography

See J. Henslin, Marriage and Family in a Changing Society (2d ed. 1985).

Women

Sources

Law of Coverture. Colonial women who married ceased to exist, legally speaking, as separate persons. Single women maintained much greater control over their own property than did married women. Under the English common law doctrine of coverture, upon marriage the wife became covered by the husband; that is, she could not act in legal matters except in concert with her husband. While the law allowed them to act together, the husband controlled all legal affairs and was under no legal compulsion to consult his wife. A husband could even be found liable for the wrongdoing of his wife on the assumption that it occurred at his behest. In some instances husbands could be whipped for the wife’s crime, including adultery.

Colonial Departures. In the American colonies coverture was followed but with modifications, as in the case of dower rights. Under English law one-third of a deceased husband’s estate, called a dower, had to be preserved for the support of his surviving wife. In Britain this law frequently was circumvented, but in America it was protected and strengthened. Often, especially

in New England, the court would enlarge the dower to more than one-third of the estate, so great was the concern for the protection of widows. In some courts women were allowed to sue in their own names.

Dutch Influence. The jurisprudence of the Netherlands was heavily influenced by Roman law and afforded women more protection. For example, Dutch women could sign joint wills with their husbands, something not allowed under English law. The joint will option meant that, until 1695, Dutch women in New York often had greater say in matters of inheritance than did English women.

Anglicization. During the 1600s it was not uncommon for women to appear in English colonial courts in their husband’s stead, even as their attorneys. After 1700 the economic life of the colonies became more complex, and knowledge of English common law proved useful. With greater Anglicization came even greater sexism in the courts, and the acceptance of women in the courtroom lessened. On the other hand, divorce, though rare and difficult, was easier to obtain in America than it was in England.

Crime. It is possible that crimes committed by women were underreported, but from available data it appears that women were less likely to commit crimes of any category except witchcraft. In New England the only women accused of murder before 1660 had killed children. And women were particularly susceptible to be victims of crime. Female servants were susceptible to sexual harassment even though the law could and would strictly punish men who exploited such women.

Gender Differences. Women were commonly treated differently than men. Connecticut and Massachusetts laws against sodomy, perjury, and idolatry applied only to men on the theory that women could not commit them. Since fornication was most likely to be discovered by the pregnancy of the woman, women were at much greater risk of being charged with that crime. Unless she reported the name of the father, he would probably remain undetected and not receive punishment. It became common to question mothers during childbirth to ascertain the father’s name, both to ensure his punishment and to guarantee his support of the child.

Sources

Edgar J. McManus, Law and Liberty in Early New England (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993);

David E. Narrett, Inheritance and Family Life in Colonial New York City (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992);

Marylynn Salmon, Women and the Law of Property in Early America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986).

424. Women

See also 253. MALE ; 255. MANKIND ; 281. MOTHER ; 327. PREGNANCY ; 364. SEX ; 418. WIFE .

bluestockingism

1. the state of being a pedantic or literal-minded woman.

2. behavior characteristic of such a woman. —bluestocking , n., adj.

coverture

Law. the status of a married woman.

emmenology

that branch of medicine that deals with menstruation and its related disorders.

femicide

1. the murder of a woman.

2. the murderer of a woman. Also called gynecide, gynaecide . —femicidal , adj.

gunocracy

gynecocracy.

gynarchy

a form of government by a woman or women. Also called gynecocracy . —gynarchic , adj.

gynecocracy

rule by women. Also called gunocracy, gyneocracy, gynaeocracy .

gynecolatry, gynaecolatry

the worship of women. Also gyneolatry . —gynecolater , n.

gynecology, gynaecology

the branch of medical science that studies the diseases of women, especially of the reproductive organs. —gynecologist , n. —gynecologic, gynecological , adj.

gynecopathy, gynaecopathy

any illness that afflicts only women. —gynecopathic, gynaecopathic , adj.

gynephobia, gynophobia

an abnormal fear or hatred of women. —gynephobe , n.

gyniatrics

the medical field dealing with women’s dieases.

hoydenism

ill-bred, boisterous, or tomboyish behavior in a woman. —hoyden , n. —hoydenish , adj.

maenadism

behavior characteristic of a maenad or bacchante; raging or wild behavior in a woman.

matriarchate

1. a matriarchal form of government.

2. a family, tribe, or other social group ruled by a matriarch or matriarchs. —matriarchic , adj.

matriarchy

1. a community in which the mother or oldest female is the supreme authority, and descent is traced through the female line.

2. government by females, with one as supreme. —matriarchist , n. —matriarchic, matriarchical , adj.

misogyny

a hatred of women —misogynist , n.

nubility

the condition of being marriageable, especially in reference to a woman’s age or physical development. —nubile , adj.

parthenolatry

the worship of virgins.

parthenology

Physiology. the study of virginity.

philogyny

a love of or liking for women. —philogynist , n. —philogynous , adj.

pudicity

modesty, especially chastity or chastefulness.

sexism

the practice of discriminating against women in job opportunities, salary levels and increases, and in other matters now generally considered to be equally the right of women. —sexist , n., adj.

sorority

a fellowship or association of women, as for a benevolent or charitable purpose or at a college.

suffragettism

militant advocacy of suffrage for women. See also 322. POLITICS .

women. The Buddha's attitude towards women was not radically different from that of his contemporaries. For male renunciates pursuing the religious life, women were seen as a temptation and a snare. The Buddha frequently cautioned monks to be on their guard when dealing with women lest they be overcome by lust and longing (tṛṣṇā). The following interchange between the Buddha and Ānanda from the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta illustrates this attitude:—Lord, how should we conduct ourselves with regard to women?
—Don't see them, Ānanda.
—But if we should see them?
—Don't talk to them.
—But if they should talk to us?
—Keep wide awake, Ānanda.
(It should be noted that similar warnings were given to women about the dangers of men.) It was following the intervention of Ānanda that the Buddha was reluctantly persuaded to allow women to join the Saṃgha as nuns (bhikṣunī). In the context of the time, this was something of a radical step, since only one other group in India, the Jains (see Jainism), appears to have allowed women to become nuns. In contrast to the role of women in the religious life, in the context of lay society the role of woman as wife and mother was seen as crucial to the stability of the social order. Regarding the role of women in lay life, the Buddha upheld the traditional values of his time, describing the relationship between husband and wife in the following terms: ‘In five ways should a wife…be ministered to by her husband: by respect, by courtesy, by faithfulness, by handing over authority to her, by providing her with adornments. In these five ways does the wife ministered to by her husband love him: her duties are well performed; by hospitality to the kin of both; by faithfulness; by watching over the goods he brings; and by skill and industry in discharging all her business’ (Sigālovāda Sutta). In modern times the Sakyadhita organization has been founded to further the participation of women in the religious life. See also dasa-silmātā; sikkhamat; thilashin.

women women and children first order given on a ship in difficulty, indicationg that women and children should be allowed on to the lifeboats before men; in allusive (and often humorous) use, warning of a risky or unpleasant situation. The term is recorded from the mid 19th century.
women beneath a cloak a group of women beneath a cloak is the emblem of St Ursula, who was said to have been put to death with 11,000 virgins.
women's liberation the liberation of women from inequalities and subservient status in relation to men, and from attitudes causing these (now generally replaced by the term feminism).

See also England is the paradise of women, woman.

wom·en / ˈwimin/ • plural form of woman.

Women See Gender.

women •examine, famine, gamin •admin • jasmine • Yasmin • Brahmin •women • specimen • madwomen •clanswomen • charwomen •craftswomen • draughtswomen •gentlewomen • Welshwomen •Frenchwomen •airwomen, chairwomen •laywomen • stateswomen •saleswomen • policewomen •kinswomen • Englishwomen •businesswomen • Irishwomen •congresswomen • countrywomen •jurywomen • servicewomen •tribeswomen •Scotswomen, yachtswomen •forewomen • horsewomen •sportswomen • oarswomen •councilwomen • townswomen •noblewomen • spokeswomen •frontierswomen • alderwomen •anchorwomen • washerwomen •Ulsterwomen • churchwomen •catechumen, illumine, lumen •bitumen •albumen, albumin •Duralumin • cumin • Benjamin •theremin • vitamin •determine, ermine, vermin