Man and woman

English society in the Renaissance was patriarchal. This means that in its organisation the male part and the male line was the most important. This follows from the ideas that existed about man and woman, about their differences and similarities.

The man was seen as the head of the family, the head of the household. In general, his job was to provide his wife and children with everything they needed and to protect them. A woman’s job was to take care of the children, her husband and to supervise the household.

The general opinion was that women were supposed to be chaste, silent and obedient. Most men saw women as inferior to men. These ideas were based on theological ideas, such as Eve being responsible for the fall of mankind and easily seduced. But also on Aristotle’s idea “that women were incomplete creatures”.¹ What also contributed was the legal status that women had. In fact, on their own they had no status at all. They were the daughter, the wife or widow of a man.

In 16th century Europe, the average age for a woman to marry was 22, for a man it was 24. With these numbers, you must keep in mind that people married a lot, two or three marriages per person was not exceptional. This was caused by the fact that people died very young; the average life expectancy was between 40 and 50 years, and marriage also had an important social function.

In Renaissance England there were a lot of different ideas about marriage, just like there are in our time. But in general you were supposed to marry someone of roughly the same age, the same social status and wealth and someone with the same religion.

Higher social groups had other ideas about marriage than lower social groups had. In the upper classes, the royalty and the aristocracy, marriage was very complicated and it was mainly seen as a political and economic decision. Marriages were almost always arranged by the parents of both parties, sometimes when the children were still very young. At the other end of the social scale, often a man as well as a woman had the freedom to choose their partner.

Divorce, as we know it today, was unknown. A marriage could be annulled, but that did not happen very often and almost only the higher social groups had the ability to do so. In the lower social groups, one partner just left the other or they both decided to leave. There is some mentioning of men selling their wives, as a way to divorce. But this was not very common practice.

The average woman had 5 or 6 children. Although the Church made it clear that it opposed contraception, people did use it. Giving birth to a child was dangerous: 1 in 40 women died while giving birth. If mother and child survived the delivery, chances were very high that the child would die in the next 5 years.

Children from the higher social classes would be taught at home by their mothers and go to a boarding school around the age of 10. Children from lower social classes would be sent away to work as a servant or an apprentice at around 15.

Many historians have thought that the family relations in these times must have been cold and not very loving. Life was certainly more uncertain than it is now, with new outbreaks of the plague, little knowledge about health care and hygiene and a lot of poverty. But it probably did not mean that people loved each other less.