Gender Community and Society
Europe’s Early Modern period (1450-1789) underwent vast changes, particularly among intellectual circles. At the same time as innovative intellectual movements like the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, and the Enlightenment arose, their effects touched women and those below the upper echelons of society only minimally. Only after the Early Modern period did the division between the upper classes and the peasantry truly come into question, and the role of women in society did not change dramatically until far later. While being a monarch was the only way for a woman to truly transcend gendered constraints, women of all classes managed to take agency in some aspects of their lives. And though the upper classes remained a pervasive influence in peasant life, both peasants and the upper reaches of society found ways to take charge of their own lives.
In the Early Modern period, female monarchs were able to live free from many of the constraints most women faced while women from all walks of life also managed to carve out elements of agency for themselves in a patriarchal world. For example, the Austrian Habsburgs’ laws prevented women from ascending to the throne. Maria Theresa was able to circumvent this tradition and acquire power after her father issued an imperial decree, allowing her to become Austrian empress (Wiesner-Hanks, 368). Catherine “the Great” of Russia gained influence in spheres of intellectuals during the Enlightenment (Wiesner-Hanks, 376). Other women involved themselves in the Enlightenment by hosting salons, or intellectual gatherings in private homes (Wiesner-Hanks, 389). Though women managed to work their way into academic discourse, the Enlightenment—apart from its radical fringes—aimed to exclude women (Wiesner-Hanks, 406). Peasant women also seized elements of agency in their own lives. Women played key roles in farming and though it did not earn them much, many women made their livings by spinning wool and cotton (Wiesner-Hanks, 499).
This period of intellectual innovation occurred largely within the upper classes, and peasants’ lives remained relatively consistent. Mainstream Enlightenment thinkers did not advocate for the allocation of rights to the poor (Wiesner-Hanks, 407). The aristocracy and upper classes exercised significant control over peasant life and they did not want to risk losing this control. Throughout most of Europe, peasants still owed significant obligations to local landholders, and in some places they were enserfed (Wiesner-Hanks, 225). Peasants frequently retaliated through strikes, boycotts, or outright rebellions such as the German Peasants’ War.
Peasant villages themselves had a wealth-based hierarchy. Some better-off peasants would hire laborers to tend their lands (Wiesner-Hanks, 219). Many peasants did not have enough land to do so, and landless peasants were forced to make ends meet through wage labor (Wiesner-Hanks, 219). By the 17th century, landowners transitioned from communally-owned lands to an enclosure system of agriculture (privately-owned lands), resulting in widespread protests (Wiesner-Hanks, 482). Warfare was ubiquitous, and largely served as a means for kings to demonstrate their glory and enlarge their borders. Peasants bore the burden of these wars, both in lives lost and in economic hardship (Wiesner-Hanks, 344). Despite the significant political and academic changes within the upper classes, the poor remained under the thumb of nobility, though not without resistance.
Written by Peter Marshall