Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Cauldron of God's Wrath
- Chapter 2 Bishops of Rome
- Chapter 3 Conversion of the Wild Men
- Chapter 4 Feudalism emerges
- Chapter 5 Land and Folk
- Chapter 6 The Village (1)
- Chapter 7 The Village (2)
- Chapter 8 Village Dance and Song
- Chapter 9 Nature and Superstition
- Chapter 10 Popes and Prelates
- Chapter 11 Rector and Vicar
- Chapter 12 The Making of a Priest
- Chapter 13 Church statistics
- Chapter 14 The Shepherd
- Chapter 15 The Flock (1)
- Chapter 16 The Flock (2)
- Chapter 17 The Silver Lining
- Chapter 18 Dante's Commedia
- Chapter 19 The Royal Court
- Chapter 20 Chivalry
- Chapter 21 Chaucer and Malory
- Chapter 22 The Monastery
- Chapter 23 Cloister Life
- Chapter 24 The Town
- Chapter 25 Home Life
- Chapter 26 Trade and Travel
- Chapter 27 Just Price and Usury
- Chapter 28 The Ghetto (1)
- Chapter 29 The Ghetto (2)
- Chapter 30 Justice and Police
- Chapter 31 From School to University
- Chapter 32 Scholastics and Bible
- Chapter 33 Science
- Chapter 34 Medicine
- Chapter 35 Freethought and Inquisition
- Chapter 36 The Papal Schism
- Chapter 37 The Lollards
- Chapter 38 The Black Death
- Chapter 39 The Hundred Years' War
- Chapter 40 The Mystics
- Chapter 41 The Peasant Saint
- Chapter 42 Artist Life
- Chapter 43 Literary Life
- Chapter 44 Sports and Theatre
- Chapter 45 Women's Life
- Chapter 46 Marriage and Divorce
- Chapter 47 The Old and the New
- Chapter 48 More and Utopia
- Chapter 49 The Fight for the Bible
- Chapter 50 The Open Bible
- Chapter 51 Peasant and Highbrow
- Chapter 52 The Bursting of the Dykes
- Notes
- Index
- Plate section
Chapter 46 - Marriage and Divorce
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The Cauldron of God's Wrath
- Chapter 2 Bishops of Rome
- Chapter 3 Conversion of the Wild Men
- Chapter 4 Feudalism emerges
- Chapter 5 Land and Folk
- Chapter 6 The Village (1)
- Chapter 7 The Village (2)
- Chapter 8 Village Dance and Song
- Chapter 9 Nature and Superstition
- Chapter 10 Popes and Prelates
- Chapter 11 Rector and Vicar
- Chapter 12 The Making of a Priest
- Chapter 13 Church statistics
- Chapter 14 The Shepherd
- Chapter 15 The Flock (1)
- Chapter 16 The Flock (2)
- Chapter 17 The Silver Lining
- Chapter 18 Dante's Commedia
- Chapter 19 The Royal Court
- Chapter 20 Chivalry
- Chapter 21 Chaucer and Malory
- Chapter 22 The Monastery
- Chapter 23 Cloister Life
- Chapter 24 The Town
- Chapter 25 Home Life
- Chapter 26 Trade and Travel
- Chapter 27 Just Price and Usury
- Chapter 28 The Ghetto (1)
- Chapter 29 The Ghetto (2)
- Chapter 30 Justice and Police
- Chapter 31 From School to University
- Chapter 32 Scholastics and Bible
- Chapter 33 Science
- Chapter 34 Medicine
- Chapter 35 Freethought and Inquisition
- Chapter 36 The Papal Schism
- Chapter 37 The Lollards
- Chapter 38 The Black Death
- Chapter 39 The Hundred Years' War
- Chapter 40 The Mystics
- Chapter 41 The Peasant Saint
- Chapter 42 Artist Life
- Chapter 43 Literary Life
- Chapter 44 Sports and Theatre
- Chapter 45 Women's Life
- Chapter 46 Marriage and Divorce
- Chapter 47 The Old and the New
- Chapter 48 More and Utopia
- Chapter 49 The Fight for the Bible
- Chapter 50 The Open Bible
- Chapter 51 Peasant and Highbrow
- Chapter 52 The Bursting of the Dykes
- Notes
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
We come now to one of the most important questions of all; that of the marriage contract. One fair rough criterion of any civilization is the clearness and sanctity of its contracts. And, in this particular matter, the woman has far more interest than the man; for, as the physically weaker party, and the less able to stand up by herself against economic competition, she suffers far more through the break-up of a household and the care of the derelict children; nor can we imagine any state of society—unless, perhaps, we ever arrived at mechanical incubation, as with poultry—in which she would not be the party more interested in stability of marriage than her mate.
From Adam and Eve onwards, the woman's duty had always been to spin; thus spinster became a natural designation for an unmarried girl. In early European civilization (e.g. under Charlemagne) there were great spinning-chambers, gynaecea, for the girls. “The great emperor was so anxious that womankind should be employed in productive labour, that he made his own daughters work in the domestic gynaeceum as diligently as the other females.” Though these seem to have died out gradually, until economic progress revived the system again in fifteenth-century England, and much earlier in Italy and the Low Countries, yet there was always a tendency, natural in medieval circumstances, to deal with the younger female population in the mass. In 1285, a French lord manumitted by will, “for the health of my soul, one hundred girls from my two estates”.
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- Information
- Medieval PanoramaThe English Scene from Conquest to Reformation, pp. 629 - 646Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1938