Michelle Looney

English 1202

Dr. Frank Beesley

November 26, 2000

This paper will discuss the rights roles and problems of women in the Classical,

Medieval, and Renaissance historical periods using specific examples from literature. I

will use examples from The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Bible, The Iliad, and The Odyssey.

Also several references to other literary works will be included as examples. I wish to

prove that the roles of women were very restrictive in those times as compared to today’s

standards in most societies. Women in the Classical periods were viewed as prizes to be

won or lost. Also, they were expected to stay at home to weave and look after family

matters. In the Medieval Period women were expected to stay out of public life. In many

cases women were even looked upon as evil, and they were not very highly esteemed.

The Renaissance Period was slightly less restrictive in its views toward women. In some

places women were even allowed to maintain their own property and businesses after the

death of a spouse. Literature gives many examples of how women were viewed at

different times throughout history. A resounding theme echoes through all of these

literary periods. Women were meant to stay and home and take care of their families.

The rights of a woman were based mainly upon how her guardian, father, or husband

thought the rights of a woman should be. The majority of these societies felt that a

woman’s place was at a spinning wheel.

My first literary period to be discussed is the Classical Period. Women had many

roles in the Classical Period. . During this period a woman was to stay at home and raise
 Looney 2

A woman was expected to stay at home and raise her children and do the household

weaving. Women were called upon to rule their husband’s kingdoms while he was away

from home. Also, women were thought of as prizes to be won. A double standard also

existed in the Classical Period.

Even though women had little or no power outside of their households they did exhibit

great influence over their households. Elizabeth Wayland Barber says, “Women in

antiquity may have had no formal political power but they were also never without

influence, especially in the home and even in the relatively sheltered atmosphere of fifth-

century Rome.”(Barber, 1) This is evident in The Odyssey in the fact that Penelope

makes decisions and takes some actions even though her husband is not present. Also in

The Odyssey, Queen Arête and her daughter make decisions that help to determine

policy. The women of Phoenician society, also, ruled over their own households.

During this time women were also responsible for the making of the cloth of the entire

household. Elizabeth Wayland Barber states, “Aside from sex, sleeping, and cooking,

weaving was one of the main occupations of women in antiquity. Penelope spends her

waking hours weaving, and it is for her “skill in exquisite workmanship” as well as for

her extraordinary intelligence that her suitors want her for their bride. …an ancient

woman would spend most of her free life spinning and weaving, since cloth for all family

needs was made at home from start to finish.”(Barber 2) The importance of weaving is

also shown in the fact that even the goddesses Circe and Calypso work at the loom.

Weaving is also shown as important in The Iliad. Homer tells the reader that Helen is
 Looney 3

weaving a cloak of purple cloth depicting scenes of the battle that is being fought for her.

Also Hector’s wife Andromache is weaving a cloak of purple cloth when she is informed

of her husband’s death.

During this period a woman was expected to stay at home and raise her children.

However, she was also responsible for the well being of the people under her care even to

caring for her husband’s kingdom. Several examples of a woman’s role being expanded

beyond her home exist throughout literature. When Odysseus left to go and fight in the

Trojan War, Penelope was left in charge of his kingdom. This is also true in the Epic of

Gilgamesh in that Gilgamesh left his kingdom to his wife and went off to make a name

for himself that he might be immortal forever.

Women in the Classical Period were also thought of as prizes to be won. In The Iliad

Chrysies is captured and taken from her home by Agamemnon. When he is told that he

must return her to her father to appease the god Apollo he states that if he must give up

his prize than he will take Achilles prize, Brises. This shows that women were thought of

as prizes to be won in battle who had no say so in where they were taken or to whom they

were married. The whole Trojan War was fought because Helen was taken from

Menelaus, and had been awarded to Paris as a prize in a contest. The contest was

between three goddesses who were given a golden apple upon which was written “to the

Most Beautiful.” The goddesses then decided to let Paris judge the contest. All three of

the goddesses promised Paris a prize if he would only choose them. Paris choose

Aphrodite, and his reward was that of the most beautiful woman in the world. It did not
 Looney 4

matter to Paris or the Gods that she was already married to Menalus. So the Trojan War

was fought because Menalus’s pride was hurt because his prize had been taken away.

During the Classical Period there was also a double standard between men and

women. Men were allowed to go out and have affairs with other women while their

wives were supposed to stay at home and remain faithful. In The Epic of Gilgamesh,

Gilgamesh went out and exercised his right of Jus Primae Notcis, which gave the king the

privilege to spend the first night with the bride of any subordinate. Also in The Odyssey,

Odysseus had many affairs with different women but was concerned when he came home

and found that his Penelope had not remained faithful to him. Odysseus had even spent

seven years with Calypso and one year with Circe. Penelope’s faithfulness was expected

but Odysseus’ affairs were overlooked as the weakness of a man.

During this time period a man’s love and comfort were found among his comrades

and not his wife and family. A man was very loyal to his other comrades but did not

necessarily have to be loyal to his wife. A man’s joy was to be in the company of the

men he had formed a strong friendship with on the battlefield. This is shown to be true in

The Epic of Gilgamesh when the epic speaks of Gilgamesh and Enkindu having the love

of a woman for each other. Also the story also states that Gilgamesh and Enkindu they

comfort each other and lie down to sleep holding hands with each other. Another

example of such male comradery in literature is in The Iliad when Achilles’ best friend is

killed, Achilles is determined to fight; yet in comparison when he lost his wife, he just

wallowed in self-pity. An example of this kind of male loyalty to males is found in

 Looney 5

Odysseus’s men following him no matter what the danger such loyalty was not common

between men and women.

The next period to be discussed is the Medieval Period. During this period of time the

social status of a woman was more important to her than her inheritance. The book

Women in Medieval Life states “Social status was even more important for a medieval

woman than her physical inheritance, for it defined how she would be regarded by others,

whom she could marry, or what form of religious life she might undertake. Status was

determined by birth, for medieval thinkers firmly believed that royal and noble blood was

indeed different from the substance which pulsed through the veins of the bourgeois and

the peasants, and that it should not be intermingled with that of a lower rank.”(Labarge,

19) This same book goes on to say, “Women shared the status of their family and their

husband all the way up and down the social scale, though a married woman was always a

step below her husband for he was her lord and master.”(Labarge, 20) This elevated

status of women with social status is shown in the Arthurian tales where the queen was to

be as highly as revered as the king by her subjects.

During this time period, women were also responsible for maintaining the households

and decorating them to show off the riches and wealth of their husbands. Susan Stuard

says, “She was also supposed to be competent in running the household once she was

married, since its material comfort and maintenance was primarily her

responsibility.”(Stuard, 103) Women also paid many of the subjects their yearly

bonuses. They also took care of the sick on their manor. Labarge says, “ The lady of a
 Looney 6

household had considerable supervisory responsibility for the treatment of the wounds

and ailments of her own household and those directly dependent on it.” (Labarge, 11)

Herlihy says, “The woman comes to an extradionary role in the management of the

family property in the early Middle Ages, and social customs as well as economic life

were influenced by her prominence. All of these come out in stories such as The Song of

Roland and the Arthurian legends.

Upper Class women in the Medieval period were also honored and respected by a

code of chivalry. One aspect of this chivalric code is “…a capacity for experiencing

romantic love that was at once selfless and passionate.”

Biblical stories were also very important as examples of the way that women were

perceived in Medieval times. At their worst women were evil seductresses created to

draw men from the path of goodness. Joan Ferrante states, “Every woman is Eve, the

part of man that is vulnerable to the temptations of the devil, the part responsible for his

fall from grace.” Angela Wisel states, “Medieval women were often perceived as the

offspring of evil, always ready to return to their dangerous nature.”(Weisel, 114) This

view perceived women to be fleshly beings unable to obtain the nobler reaches of the

spiritual beings of men.

Part of the reason for a woman being looked on as not being spiritual was the fact that

she gave birth and had a menstrual cycle. Ferranate says, “The connection of woman

with the flesh, with matter, is at least partly based on her biological function to give
 Looney 7

birth.” (Ferrante, 19) She goes on to say, “Her menstruation is also indicative of

something unclean as

figuratively as well as physically; it is said to signify bad thoughts, hence men who touch

women while they are menstruating will defile their own thoughts.” (Ferrante, 19)

Although the Bible never states this directly it does suggest all of this comes about

because of Eve’s sin.

Another view of a woman in the Medieval Period was that she could not be placed

lower than God’s standards placed her, and as a soul women’s and men’s souls were

equal. Bede Jarrett states, “For the medievalist, therefore, the position of a woman was

governed exclusively by her purpose in the mind of the Creator as the Bible had

expressed it. There was no possibility or desire of assigning to woman an inferior place

because of her lesser capacity for love, for no one would have admitted this to be true or

even possible. As human souls men and women were equal, as saints a woman might

even be a better lover of God than a man.”(Jarrett, 73)

The Canterbury Tales discusses the ideas and roles of woman in Medieval times.

Through its stories it gives us a picture of how women were viewed. They were often

treated with violence. It was socially acceptable to hurt and rape women to keep them in

their proper places. Weisel says, “The need to repress women as a result of their

dangerous power that leads to sin is raised at the beginning of the first of the Canterbury

Tales, when the knight describes the Theseus’s conquering of “al the renege of

Feymene.”
 Looney 8

Women became used to dealing with violence. The three women in the Canterbury Tales

who told stories did not try to address the violence in their worlds. Instead they told

some of the more violent stories. This suggests that women may become what they are

perceived to be. During this time violence against women was common since it was

generally believed that women deserved what they got. Women often held the same view

of themselves that men held of them.

In the Canterbury Tales violence against women is shown in three different ways.

One of these ways is to present the violence in a humorous way so the horror of the

violence is overshadowed by the comedy. In one of the stories the Miller’s Wife talks

about someone being raped with a red-hot poker. Then to overshadow the violence

comedy is introduced by having the person who was raped jump up and make fun of

someone else. Such use of comedy also occurs in the pretend rape of the miller’s wife

and daughter. The rape is overshadowed by the fact that the wife supposedly likes the

rape better than the sex she and her husband have.

The second type of violence portrayed in the stories is one where violence never

actually happens, but it is always in the background. Women had tough choices to make

and if they made the wrong one it could mean rape or even worse them. This type of

violence is evidenced in the Franklin’s Tale. Romance was a dangerous thing for women

at the time. It eventually meant they would be forced to submit to be a man whether it

was her will or not.

The third type of story in the Canterbury Tales is the religious narrative. Women’s

virginity, especially religious women, was protected at great cost. Women would be
 Looney 9

deformed by the church to make them less pleasant to the eye of a gentleman. Violence

came to the forefront in these types of stories. In the Golden Legend such acts of violence

were carried out on women. One woman had her breast cut off; another had all of her

teeth pulled. Such brutality was done under the pretense of saving these women from hell

by keeping them pure.

The next period in literature to be discussed is the Renaissance Period. During this

period women were trying to gain more freedom. Men tried to make the women agree to

give up all of their rights and have a guardian to watch over their money and represent

them in the courts of law. Women opposed this and many of them wrote poems to

defend their rights. During this time there was a separation between public and private

life that got wider as time went on. Mary Beth Rose says, “Women differed from men in

their ability to be witnesses, make wills, act as guardians for their own children, make

contract, and own, buy, and sell property.” (Rose, 4) Women felt that if they could make

decisions in the private aspects of their lives than they should also be able to make the

same legal decisions in the public part of their lives. Up until now women had been

managing their own businesses after the death of their husbands, but in the Renaissance

they were asked to give up this right and close the shops they had helped to build. The

women soon realized that because of their sex, and regardless of their abilities, they were

not able to continue in their endeavors, not because of a lack of skills. Mary Beth Rose

states, “As restrictions increased, however, these women also showed the beginnings of a
 Looney 10

realization the their situation and circumstances resulted more from their sex than from

their social status, economic class, or innate abilities.” (Rose, 22)

Also in the Renaissance Period the idea of stoicism was very important. The Countess

of Pembroke translates the story of Antoine and Cleopatra. Mary Ellen Lamb says, “In

both the Countess’s translation of Garnier and in Daniel’s play, the heroic representation

of Cleopatra functions as an exemplification of the female virtues idealized in

Renaissance England. Cleopatra becomes a mirror through which women can perceive

themselves-in their self-sacrifices, in their constancy, in their love for and anger at their

husbands-as heroic. If women could not fight in battle, argue in law courts, intrigue in

the royal court, at least they could achieve heroic stature by preserving Stoic equanimity

at home.”(Lamb, 218) Men particularly liked this view because it did not go against the

status quo of the society.

This stoic virtue is shown very plainly in Samuel Brandon’s The Vertous Octavia. It

is told from the perspective of Octavie who gains heroic stature by maintaining calm in

the face of Antione’s affair with Cleopatra. Lamb says, “Octavia provides a model of

how to deal with domestic affliction, and the real drama of the play lies in Octavia’s

attempt to keep a “virtuous minde”.” (Lamb, 218) This stoic behavior can be extended to

everyday life in the Renaissance Period because wives were often left at home to take

care of country estates while their husbands traveled around. Lamb states, “Brandon’s

play presents the inner turmoil resulting from the restrictions placed on female behavior
 Looney 11

as an opportunity for heroism, although the terms of this heroism require nothing less

than absolute self effacement.”

Lamb says, “Perhaps the ultimate representation of female self –effacement is

contained in the countesses interpretation of Petrarch’s Triumph of Death.”(Lamb, 220)

In this story the main character Laura is visited and told she will die soon. She is

considered heroic because of her calm acceptance of death. After Laura’s death she

returns to the poet and confesses her love her him. She couldn’t do this in real life for

fear of compromising herself. This shows another important Stoic trait for women. It

shows how women can be a spiritual guide to help men get to heaven.

Lamb goes on to explain how women could look at themselves and be heroic in their

private life if not in their public life. She says, “Through this representation of Cleopatra,

women could view themselves in their simultaneous love for and anger at their husbands,

as worthy protagonists in the drama of their own lives. Through Laura, women could

perceive themselves as spiritual authorities, bearing the responsibility for their husband’s

immortal souls. If women could not win public admiration for remarkable deeds in the

outside world they could at least attain heroic stature at home in their own eyes through a

gentle form of Stoicism, giving of themselves, preserving their own equanimity despite

incitements to rage or sorrow. And when the time came they could die gracefully.”

(Lamb, 222)

In conclusion my research showed that the roles and rights of women were almost

identical in the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Periods. Women were viewed as a
 Looney 12

homemaker and someone who should not have a role in public life. A woman’s place

was below her husband to whom she was always supposed to be submissive. I am very

glad I did not live in these periods of time because with my personality I would have

been an outcast of society.

 Looney 13

Biblography

1. Barber, Elizabeth Wayland. Women’s Work the First 20,000 Years: Women,

Cloth, Society in Early Times.

http://www.nybooks.com

2. Ferrante, Joan. Women as Image in Medieval Literature from the Twelfth Century

to Dante. Columbia University Press. New York, 1975.

3. Herlihy, Janet. The Medieval World: Europe 1100-1350. The World Publishing

Company. Cleveland, 1977.

4. Jarrett, Bede, O.P. Social Theories of the Middle Ages 1200-1500. Fredrick

Ungar Publishing House Co. New York, 1926.

5. Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Small Sound of the Trumpet: Women in Medieval

Life. Beacon Press. Boston, 1976.

6. Lamb, Mary Ellen. The Art of Dying. Syracuse University Press. Syracuse,

1986.

7. Rose, Mary Beth. Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Syracuse

University Press. Syracuse, 1986.

8. Stuard, Susan Mosher. Women in Medieval Society. University of Pennsylvania

Press. 1976.

9. Wisel, Angel Jane. “Quitting Eve: Violence Against Women in the Canterbury

Tales. Columbia University Press. New York, 1975.