Gender Roles

This week sees the first of the blogs composed by you, the students! You get to take over our online interactions, and direct our discussion from the outset. Please be considerate of your colleagues' efforts and be sure to contribute generously online and in class.

Kathleen

Emily writes:

The gender expectations of this time were that women were to run the households and to raise the children; marriage was about financial and political connections and love was something reserved for Christ. But with the rise of interest in courtly and romantic love, marriage was idealized as being a symbol of love and expression of passion, thereby altering the gender expectations of women being bought and sold as wives, but as women who were something to be desired and loved.  We’ve looked at the story of Abelard and Heloise, and another I think it would be interesting to look at is the poem about Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere:

Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Like souls that balance joy and pain,

With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain

Came in a sunlit fall of rain.

In crystal vapor everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,

And far, in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost elm-tree gather'd green

From draughts of balmy air.

Sometimes the linnet piped his song;

Sometimes the throstle whistled strong;

Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along,

Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong;

By grassy capes with fuller sound

In curves the yellowing river ran,

And drooping chestnut-buds began

To spread into the perfect fan,

Above the teeming ground.

Then, in the boyhood of the year,

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,

With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seem'd a part of joyous Spring;

A gown of grass-green silk she wore,

Buckled with golden clasps before;

A light-green tuft of plumes she bore

Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,

Now by some tinkling rivulet,

In mosses mixt with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set;

And fleeter now she skimm'd the plains

Than she whose elfin prancer springs

By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings

With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,

The happy winds upon her play'd,

Blowing the ringlet from the braid.

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,

A man had given all other bliss,

And all his worldly worth for this,

To waste his whole heart in one kiss

Upon her perfect lips.

We’ve already looked at Abelard and Heloise, but the story of Lancelot and Guinevere idealized the passion and lust that was so highly sought after with the notion of romantic and courtly love.  Throughout the early, or the low middle ages the life of many consisted of being raised by your parents, married off to secure money, political connections, more land or other materialistic acquisitive means, and then the men ran the farms or worked the land, and the women raised the children. There were slight variations throughout socio-economic groups of course, but that was a generic and largely accepted routine. Within the readings, focus on the contrasts drawn between Lady Eve (from the Garden of Eden) and the Virgin Mary. One was condemned for the downfall of man, while the other was praised with bringing the Messiah to man and how this might have changed or been affected through the concepts of marriage. This also relates to virginity, which many of Gen Y may not think all that much about nowadays, could have resulted in women’s perceived ‘value’ being lowered and fines being paid to her father as compensation back in the day.

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Clare adds: 

The following are some questions which you may see as a guideline in pinpointing some aspects of this week's text. Whilst you don’t have to write out exact answers for these questions, please take time to consider each of them, and what the author/s of this week’s reading opinions are.

• How did the ‘cult of Mary’ or the ‘cult of virginity’ influence the lives of medieval women? Did the birth of Christ, from the Virgin Mary, lift women’s lowly position in medieval society or were they still scorned as the ancestors of the first sinner, Eve?
• What are the key determinants for marriage during the High Middle Ages? Did the Church’s views differ from that of the heads of families and clans?
• How did the duties of wives and women differ among the classes? Did activities such as needlework and tapestry making (among the upper classes) or being a wet-nurse (among lower classes) further hinder their freedom or enhance it? 
• It was expected that a good obedient wife would conceive and bear many children. How did this constant state of pregnancy affect women? Was motherhood a type of outlet for the medieval woman or was it just another shackle to endure?

Christine de Pizan hard at work

Also, consider these quotes from Christine de Pizan. She appears to be quite a unique and talented woman. Would you agree? Is she a rare example of an intelligent woman of her time, or just one lucky enough to be granted the right to education and thus able to express her feelings through prose and text?

“The man or the woman in whom resides greater virtue is the higher; neither the loftiness nor the lowliness of a person lies in the body according to the sex, but in the perfection of conduct and virtues.”

― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies

“How many women are there ... who because of their husbands' harshness spend their weary lives in the bond of marriage in greater suffering than if they were slaves among the Saracens?”

― Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies

Finally, if you have the time (or inclination), check out episode 2 of the documentary Kathleen mentioned (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/inside-the-medieval-mind/), as it discusses gender roles in medieval Europe, and is rather interesting.