Women and Rights in Early Modern Europe

Women and Rights in Early Modern Europe

Women And Rights In Early Modern Europe

In my paper I will be evaluating if women had limited rights in Early Modern Europe. I will be using three of our books as my material to evaluate the claim that women had inferior or limited rights versus men. I feel that in day to day life most women in Western Europe had very good lives and the freedom to do most things they choose.
In “After The Black Death”, it mentioned that when the son completed his apprenticeship, he would replace his mother at the head of the business. There were nine times as many widows as widowers that headed households in Coventry. Women under the age of fifty were forbidden to establish their own house. These seemed to be just several of the early examples of how women were treated differently than the rest of the population. It was also discussed that the man was the master of the household. Men who could not control their wives risked being ridiculed in public. At this time women in Western Europe had more rights than of women in the parts of the world. Women could choose their husband; they could get remarried after a husband’s death. They had daily power over the household and could work and run a business if they choose. Women were denied access to certain professions, like medicine, priesthood and law. European women were never segregated. Most women did have the opportunity to get at least an elementary education. In the seventeenth century in a small French town thirty-five percent of the men and twenty-seven percent of the women were literate. It was clear that in most town girls were given a chance to be educated.

The Witchcraft Source Book: It seemed that women had very little rights when they were accused of witchcraft. As we learned they were usually tortured until they provided a needed confession by their prosecutors. A question was asked why a larger number of witches were found in the “fragile” female sex. It is very interesting that they use the...

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