An analytical review on how idealised gender roles impacted the lives of women in the early modern period?

An analytical review on how idealised gender roles impacted the lives of women in the early modern period?

Introduction

Gender roles were very defined and static during the early modern period, men were expected to act and dress masculine and women were expected to dress and act feminine. People who acted outside the social norms of what was expected in early modern society were ostracised and treated with contempt. This discussion creates an analytical review of the literature that existed in the period that presented the expectations of these gender roles and representations.

Tyndale’s Definition of Women

In 1534 William Tyndale translated the New Testament and within his writings defined women as ‘the weaker vessel’. Tyndale’s definition and the characterisation of women being the weaker sex in the view of the Early Modern World remained relatively similar way into the 1600s. In Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man he wrote:

“God, which created woman, knoweth what is in that weak vessel and hath therefore put her under the obedience of her husband to rule her…”[1]

Tyndale’s text therefore defines women as the subordinate sex and asserts that the gender roles of the early modern period were organised into a patriarchy and men were in control. Tyndale’s early writings did not exist in isolation. Two decades later Thomas Becon and John Knox would write texts that provoked controversy and reasserted the dominant role of the male and the obedience of the woman as idealised gender roles for the period. Whilst, Tyndale’s text and later texts related to all women affected their lives and expectations. Becon and Knox during the period focused on attacks of the female kind that they believed were transgressing the social order and corrupting the gender roles: Queens and women in the political sphere. Nevertheless, throughout all these primary texts comes one overarching ideology – men were superior to women, and women should be subordinate to men. Anthony Fletcher also alludes to this ideology within the Early Modern period as defining idealised gender roles he argues:

            “An individual’s sexual temperament, in effect gender, was a question of the balance in the body of the hot and cold, dry and moist qualities…”[2]

The mid 1500s saw many criticisms of the female kind. Tyndale wrote that women were the ‘weaker vessel’ and that they were inferior to men. Tyndale’s writings provoked the opinions of other men who were concerned about the place of women in society and the fears they had if this social order was disrupted. In particular, Wythorne argued that women were manipulative and deceitful and that although they were the ‘weaker vessel’ they would:

“overcome two, three or four men in the satisfying of their carnal appetites”.[3]

Anthony Fletcher’s argument on Female inferiority

Men during the early modern period, argued that women used love, lust and manipulation to overcome their inferior nature to men and to gain what they required through marriage and falsification of feelings to manipulate the system. Fletcher also relates to this ideology that women were ‘vessels’ of less worth as he argues:

“The Male is hotter that the female because… the male hath larger vessels and members, stronger limbs… and more courageous mind…”[4]

Fletcher’s argument therefore is that women were inferior and not as able to use their minds to their advantage in the social realm. However, Wythorne’s fear demonstrates that women didn’t need the mind of the man, and that they would use their bodies and ideals around sexuality to manipulate the minds and hearts of these ‘courageous’ men that Fletcher speaks of. This view can be validated by an extract from Robert Burton[5] he argues that:

“Cruel Love, to what dost thou not force the hearts of men? How it tickles the hearts of mortal men, I am almost afraid to relate, amazed and ashamed, it hath wrought such stipend and prodigious effects…”[6]

From this extract, Tyndale’s ‘weaker vessel’ claim and Wythorne’s ideology, historians can deduct that women weren’t highly thought of in the early modern society, and that even their actions surrounding love and affection were criticised by men who feared their actions had bad consequences due to the circulating idealised gender roles and the information that detailed the dangers of transgressing these gender roles. This extract from Burton also provokes another thought process amongst the men. He uses words such as ‘cruel’ and ‘afra