Dana Chepulis
English 215-02
Miss Schimmels
9 Octonber 2008
The Evolution of the Modern Woman Beginning in the Middle Ages
Throughout the centuries, the role of women in society has been a debatable topic. There are concerns from every angle concerning how a woman should behave and react in society, as well as what the rights and concerns of women should be. In the Middle Ages, women had no voice. Men were taught from nearly birth from superior figures such as the clergy and scholars as well as their own father’s that women’s place in the world was to be silent and submissive to all males. However, the role of the pre-modern woman began to change when a select group of authors decided to give women authority in a variety of well-known literary pieces. The evolution of the modern woman began to develop in the Middle Ages through the support of literary works written by authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer.
In the Middle Ages, priests, monks, and men of the clergy believed in total superiority of the male species. Starting when the Bible explains how Eve was made from the rib of Adam, men have felt they have had authority over women. There are countless times in the Bible when the Lord points out men being above women both spiritually and authoritatively. In 1Timothy 2:11-14, Paul tells Timothy that women should be quiet in learning and submissive to the authority of men. It says, beginning in verse 13 and ending in verse 14 that “Adam was formed first, than Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor”. Men of the Middle Ages focused on verses such as these to justify their actions towards women. They failed to study the other verses in the Bible, such as Ephesians 5 when the Lord commands husbands to “love their wives as their own bodies” in verse 28. The Lord also commands in verse 25, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
The men of superior authority in the Church...