Patriarchys Winners And Losers
When we think about the relationship between men and women in the pre-modern world, the word "patriarchy" often springs to mind. Whether it is a daughter forced into a loveless marriage by her father, a wife beaten by her husband, or a maidservant seduced (or, more accurately, raped) by her master, it seems clear that early modern society favored men over women. The idea that PATRIARCHY = MEN'S DOMINATION OF WOMEN is appealing for a number of reasons - it is clear, uncomplicated, and easily demonstrated from the historical record. (For a historical work that describes in detail the various abuses suffered by women over the course of their lives, see Mendelson and Crawford, Women in Early Modern England.)
While this picture of gender relations is reassuring in its simplicity (we know who the bad guys are), and comforting to view from the present (we know we live in a better time), in recent years historians have offered a much more complicated picture of early modern life. What I'd like to do in this post is lay out some of these findings and ask whether and how they should change the way in which we read and write about the past.
One historian who has blurred the lines of patriarchy is Alexandra Shepard, author of Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England. Here, Shepard makes the crucial point that the benefits of patriarchy were not enjoyed by all - or even most! - men. Whether they were apprentices, journeymen, servants, or students, the vast majority of men lived and worked under the authority of a patriarchal figure. Servants and apprentices had virtually no autonomy, few legal rights, and were frequently beaten by their masters. Students fared no better - at Cambridge University, students under the age of eighteen who violated college rules were thrashed on a weekly basis in front of the entire student body. The profits of patriarchy would certainly have seemed elusive in the midst of such humiliating treatment.
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