Women In Anglo Saxon Society

Even though women did not have a lot of social rights, they had two very important roles. They were to run the house and reproduce children. Even Euripides, a well known Greek playwright, stated , “Women run households and protect within their homes, and without a woman no home is clean or prosperous” (Neils 78). This shows that women were the ones who controlled the home. The wives would maintain the house and perform chores such as weaving, baking and cooking, cleaning, and fetching water. The women’s daily roles were simplified if they house had slaves. If there were slaves, they would do all of the chores and the wife would supervise

Women in the mid-1600s to mid-1700s underwent pivotal changes. While these changes would alter their roles in the colonies, certain aspects of their responsibilities remained the same.

Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne relays the theme of guilt using symbolism that is portrayed in the scarlet letter itself and in the main character’s daughter. The story follows the protagonist, Hester Prynne, who commits adultery with the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, producing the child she raises on her own named Pearl. Guilt is a common theme for the duration of the novel which covers all aspects of the shame each character feels. These particular dimensions of shame come specifically from different objects in the novel and what they represent.

As could be seen, in some of the historians from the mid-1900s as well as those of travelers during the 1800s, there was a clear bias. These people did not view female slaves as useful to the plantations because of traditional views of females as weaker and not capable of performing feats of strength like women. Furthermore, some of the travelers did not really bother to talk to the slaves or do a lot of observation in general as one female traveler did in comparison. It is obvious as the female traveler comes to the immediate conclusion that female slaves are very important to plantations and could perform hard work as she saw them do so herself

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

However, one thing women could not do is they could not hold an office. The woman in the house was essentially the housekeeper. She cooked, cleaned, and raised children. The freedom of the woman depended upon the wealth of the family. Often times higher status women were not tasked with as many household oriented chores.

Slave women had the hardest role to play in Colonial American women. They started out having to do unskilled work, such as building a fence. Then later on, when slaves became more expensive, women were seen more equal to the slave men. They were then responsible to duties that men were. Women had to work long, hard hours, side by side with men, on plantations. Then, suddenly, the north started having them take care of domestic duties for the owner’s wife. Eventually Southern states caught on, once the wives of the

Beowulf, the hero of Anglo-Saxon epic, had many adventures, and many companions and fellow-warriors are mentioned throughout his story. Some of them seem noble and courageous, truly living up to the standards of their culture; some seem cowardly. But all have gained immortality in the words, many times transcribed and translated, of the famous epic. However, the women of the time are rarely mentioned in Beowulf. Still, even from those few women who are mentioned and from other documents of the era, it is possible to see the position of women in of Anglo-Saxon society. In many cases, they enjoyed more rights than women in later Medieval cultures.

There are many known periods that we know lead to the development of the modern era and the Anglo-Saxon period is the oldest known period of time that had a complex culture with stable government, art and literature. This period is a time filled with great advancements and discoveries in government, religion, literature, and art. Cultures of Anglo-Saxon society and modern society have many similarities as well as differences. There are many differences between this period and the modern era we live in today in terms of politics, social climate, values, social hierarchy, the role of women, military, government and language. In this essay, I am going to focus on the differences of the two periods in terms of values, role of women and language in the society.

The Anglo-Saxon women took full responsibility of the day-to-day activities of their households. The wife‘s responsibility was to oversee the slaves, storerooms, make clothes and play hostess. In most societies the wife prepares the food, but in Anglo-Saxon culture, it was more customary for the man to prepare the food and the women to serve the drinks in the mead hall. Wealhtheow, from Beowulf,

A woman had a busy domestic life. A woman played the role of wife, mother, teacher and manager. She had to please her husband, bear and raise children, educate her children, and manage all daily household activities. In the home, the woman was the jack of all trades. Part of the role of the female was to take raw goods, and turn them into useful items, such as food, candles, and clothing. Women had to clean, butcher and prepare all game brought home to the family. A woman was a household factory. Many items in the home were created by women. All clothing was made by spinning, weaving and stitching. All cloth was washed by hand without the aid of any machines. Candles were made at home by weaving a wick and pouring hot wax into a mold. A woman had to be educated enough to teach her sons and daughters the skills of life. Women spent the majority of their time performing daily tasks, but still were able to have leisure activities such as painting, embroidery, and charity work. Women had very few legal rights. In the majority of colonies, women had no legal control over their lives. It was the consensus among society that

The men were involved in clearing the land, plowing, digging ditches, fencing, building, and hunting. (Smith 30) This depicted women in the colonial period as weak and inferior compared to the men. The men handled duties that required strength and especially in outside occupations where this was most important. Women in colonial America were excluded from outside occupations because they were seen as weak and incapable to handle responsibilities beyond housework or the household.

Slaves were not usually treated with respect in the households they worked in, most of the time, slaves were treated horribly. They would be raped, beaten, teased, whipped, and were victims of many cruel and unusual punishments that are unimaginable to the human race present day. Family was the most important thing to the African culture. Brothers tried their hardest to look over their younger sisters as best as possible. Old women and men with no family members to turn to, looked to the comfort of nieces, nephews, and cousins when they fell ill, and aunts and uncles played a primary part in the family as well. Men were not the only ones that were forced to take part in daily labor and routines but also women and children. Some slaves were assigned outside work in which they would tend the crops and more commonly known work the plantations on their masters estate. Women were more commonly assigned to kitchen work such as cleaning the houses, washing clothes, cooking meals, working as servants, and tending to the masters each and every need. Most women who worked in the houses were brutally raped by their masters whether or not they were married to a man or not. Although most women worked in a home setting, there were some women who did work outside with the men and children. Work was difficult on the slaves and their masters were not empathetic towards them in

Women slaves endured far worse punishment and cruelty than men ever did. Lets begin with women’s duties. Their duties consisted of two parts. The first part was that of being a household servant. They did the cleaning, cooking, cared for the white children of their Mistress and Master, and other household duties. Secondly, slave women had to not only maintain the household, at times, they were also expected to work in the fields and slave like the men on the plantations. Things like picking cotton, cleaning outside, feeding animals, and hoeing the grounds for planting crops. Slave men were never made to perform women duties.

Women withstood a multitude of limitations in the medieval era. Due to the political, social, and religious restrictions women encountered, historians neglected to realize that they demonstrated agency. The female experience is something that has been overlooked until recently. Unfortunately, without the knowledge of how women found ways to exert their power, we are experiencing a deficit of knowledge in this period. Through the close examination of the primary sources: The Gospel of Mary, Dhouda’s Liber Manualis, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the creative means of female force are displayed.