Essay Life for Medieval Women - 1331 Words

Medieval society was completely dominated by men, making a women’s life at the time difficult. Medieval law at the time stated that women could not marry without their parents consent, could not divorce their husbands, could not own property unless widows, could not inherit land if they had surviving brothers, and could own no business with special permission (Trueman, â€Å"Medieval Women†). When a woman married a man, he would get any property she owned and she would forfeit any rights she had to him. When the husband dies she would get one third of the land to live on and support herself. Unmarried women who owned land had the same rights as men (Hull). Whenever a woman got into trouble it would be her closest male relative who would appear†¦show more content†¦Midwives also perform emergency baptisms if the baby was ill or dying (Bovey). Careers Women had trouble advancing in trade and were usually barred from entering a guild (a group of skilled workers of the same trade). Typical duties would be to take care of the family, work out in the fields, be a servant to rich people, or make some sort of craft like cloths. Here’s a quote from a record in 1461: Various people of the weavers craft in Bristol employ their wives, daughters and maids either to weave at their looms, or to work for someone else at the same craft. Women would also be paid less than men for doing the same amount of work, an issue that is still around today. For reaping, a peasant man could get 8 pence a day. For the same task, peasant women would get 5 pence. For hay making, men would earn 6 pence a day while women got 4 pence (Trueman, â€Å"Medieval Women†). Common jobs for medieval women were shopkeepers, bakers, spinners, alewives, farmers, and silk weavers. There were even some women writers. Women worked more than one job because they got paid less than men therefore, in order to make an adequate income, they took on extra work. Being a spinner was the most common occupation of that time period. Women spent much of their time spinning wool into coarse thread, then weaving it into cloth and making garments (Hull). John Fitzherbert in his book A Book of Husbandry written in 1525 said of aShow MoreRelatedEssay on Abelard and Heloise836 Words   |  4 PagesThe gender views of European medieval society were largely bu ilt upon the views of Aristotle and others alike that degraded the status of women into a lower form of life, characterizing them as secondary to men. Many successive Christian intellects such as St. Augustine also contributed to establishing the idea of misogyny in the medieval views toward the female sexuality, which helped to create the gender stereotype that severely separated the role of men and women. 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