Gorilla Biscuit
militant potato
Registered: Sep 2000
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Posts: 1925 |
 help me with my homework
I just finished constructing the body of an essay about family relationships, class relationships and womens roles in Tudor/Stuart england. Im really fucking tired after referencing everything (ignore the little numbers), and cant be bothered writing a conclusion or introduction.
here is the essay, help if you can 
Upper class marriages were normally pre-arranged by parents, for purposes like status, monetary gain, marrying some one of equal upbringing. Marriages were not normally the embodiment of two peoples love towards each other. Women were deemed as highly fallible beings, not being allowed to “choose 4,” only “refuse 4.”
However, this right to refuse marriage was often denied too. Woman underwent things like being ‘tied to a bedpost and severely whipped 4’ or being placed in ‘virtual solitary confinement 3’ if they didn’t marry the person that was deemed fit for them. The man had to choose the woman, most often instructed to pick a “well born and brought up 9” wife (but not too highly, as marrying a ‘higher being’ brings “danger 9.”) The man was given advice like “enquire diligently of her disposition 10,” “let her not be poor,” and “neither make choice of dwarf or fool” as to make sure that he married a person his parents saw fit. When these points are further backed up by ‘sever [love] wholly from serious affairs and actions of life 1,” it can be seen that upper class marriage was not for love, rather an investment in a person for both parties.
Marriage in the lower class was slightly different. More emphasis was placed on love, rather than material and status gains. ‘My eye was fixed with love upon a maid … who afterwards proved to be my wife 12,’ ‘a beautiful body can be quite an addition to a beautiful soul 25.’ Still however, woman were still in the subordinate role in the relationship. Wives had to avoid using terms of endearment, or ‘use of the first name 6,’ and had to refer to their partners as just plain husband.
The process of examining the woman’s role leads on to understanding the intra-family relationships. Parallels can be drawn between the hierarchy (man being more powerful than the woman) in marriage, to the hierarchy in family relationships. The most obvious hierarchy is the generational one. Children were 100% subordinate to their parents. The children were hit “with a cane 19,” for trivial things like taking to long to get beer from the cellar (19). Even at the age of marriage, the parents still did things like break bones in “two or three places 3,” or tie their child to a bedpost and whip them. It is no wonder that “the child perfectly loathed the sight of his parents, as the slave his torturer 15.” However, these incidents were not bought on because the parents hated their children, but the parents disciplined them to “correct [the children] for [their] faults,19” so it was a love/hate relationship (“one’s child should be one’s nearest friend 15”. The next hierarchical parallel can be seen between the husband and the wife. The wife was generally seen as incapable of making serious decisions, married only to serve the husband. The woman held the subordinate role in the relationship. The woman was ‘governed by persuasion,13’ for woman were deemed as not having ‘judgement as the wise sort of men have.9’ It was the woman’s “honour to obey 13,” and the woman’s ‘subjugation doth stretch very far 6.’ Through examining these points, it can clearly be seen that in the family unit, men hold more power than woman, and elders hold more power than the children.
A pattern of hierarchies has been established so far, and when dealing with class, it is the most obvious. There are the upper and lower classes. Class was most often to do with your lineage, it was highly uncommon for a servant to enter the upper class. Marriages were most often in the same class. This was so important that one girl was “severely whipped in order to force her to marry the mentally unstable brother of the Duke of Buckingham 3.” The lower class employees (e.g. servants, maids) received very little respect from the upper class, one maid was “basted until she cried extremely 20” because things weren’t “laid…as they should be.20” Other lower class people were seen as lesser beings, there for the use of any one that happened to be higher than them. Men “[caressed] the breasts” of their maids 19.”
thanks for any help you can offer
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04-01-2001 06:48 AM
