An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England

I have chosen to solely respond on this article because I found it to be the most interesting and most dense with tidbits. From my understanding of the text it seems that most (if not all) conduct books written during this period gain their authority from two sources: the King and the Church. For the most part it seems that the household is to be treated as a kingdom, within it the Father is the King and all other members of the family unit (wife, children, and servants) are sequentially lower in status and authority. Curiously the servants are included within the family –I would have thought otherwise– they were treated much like the children; they were to be taught good manners, attend church, and had their faults “corrected”.

Within the article there seemed to be many different views on how the husbands should maintain order within his home. When it comes to discipline there seems to be three basic methods mentioned. (1) Actual physical abuse; this could be done either by the husband or by other hands: ‘it is fitter for an husband to refer the matter to a public matter to a public magistrate… and not do it with his own hands’. (2) No physical abuse; no violent hand should be raise towards a wife because she is you’re your equal (I would be very interested to see how popular this choice would have been for the 16^th and 17^th century). (3) Somewhere in the middle; there is mention of one method that seems to offer a method of no actual violence being committed and yet still malicious in its nature.

“…a husband should be kind and gentle to his wife, to gradually ‘steal away her private will, and appetite, so that of two bodies there may be made only one heart.’” I’m not quite sure if this was the intention of the writer to have an undertone of harshness, but it is the word “steal” that gives me problems. Although you do see this as the preferred method of taming of Kate by Petruchio (Taming of the Shrew), and according to the play this method seemed to be quite successful. 

**As a side note, I thought it very interesting how there was a mention of neighbours being responsible for the safety of the husband or wife during a quarrel within their home. If he is caught not maintaining the peace he could be subject to public humiliation. (I have this funny picture in my head of a neighbour peeping into a window during a fight and making sure it doesn’t get out of hand… HAHAHAHA!)