Gender Relations in Early Modern England

This concise and accessible book explores the history of gender in England between 1500 and 1700. Amidst the political and religious disruptions of the Reformation and the Civil War, sexual difference and gender were matters of public debate and private contention.

Laura Gowing provides unique insight into gender relations in a time of flux, through sources ranging from the women who tried to vote in Ipswich in 1640, to the dreams of Archbishop Laud and a grandmother describing the first time her grandson wore breeches. Examining gender relations in the contexts of the body, the house, the neighbourhood and the political world, this comprehensive study analyses the tides of change and the power of custom in a pre-modern world.

This book offers:

    Previously unpublished documents by women and men from all levels of society, ranging from private letters to court cases
    A critical examination of a new field, reflecting original research and the most recent scholarship
    In-depth analysis of historical evidence, allowing the reader to reconstruct the hidden histories of women

Also including a chronology, who¿s who of key figures, guide to further reading and a full-colour plate section, Gender Relations in Early Modern England  is ideal for students and interested readers at all levels, providing a diverse range of primary sources and the tools to unlock them.

Laura Gowing is Reader in Early Modern British History at King’s College, London. Her previous works include Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (OUP, 1996) and Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-century England (Yale, 2003).

Publisher's acknowledgements

Chronology

Who’s Who

Glossary

PART 1 ANALYSIS

Introduction: Gender relations

1 Bodies and minds

2 Patriarchal households

3 Communities

4 Polity 

Conclusion: Assessment

PART 2  DOCUMENTS  

1 Genesis 2:18–25

2 Jane Anger

3 Levinus Lemnius

4 Jane Sharp

5 Archbishop Laud’s dream

6 Katherine Austen

7 Frank North

8 Jane Martindale

9 James I and Robert Carr

10 Mrs Jane Ratcliffe

11 Mawdlin Gawen

12 Hic Mulier

13 A joke

14 Edward Lacy and Elizabeth Inkberrow

15 Leonard Wheatcroft

16 Elizabeth Browne

17 The Country Justice

18 James I and George Villiers

19 Leo Africanus

20 Sarah Jinner

21 Samuel Pepys

22 Aristotle’s Masterpiece

23 The eagle stone

24 Ralph Josselin

25 Isabella Twysden

26 Jane Minors

27 Bathsua Makin

28 An Act for the Advancement of True Religion and for the Abolishment of the Contrary, 1543

29 1 Timothy 2:9–15

30 Rose Hickman

31 Alice Driver

32 Alice Thornton

33 The Infanticide Act

34 Dod and Cleaver on marriage

35 Homily of the state of matrimony

36 Dod and Cleaver on servants

37 William Gouge

38 Maria Thynne

39 Elizabeth Freke’s remembrances

40 Anne and James Young

41 The Weavers’ Guild

42 The Lawes Resolutions of Womens Rights

43 Treatise of Testaments

44 Edward Barlow

45 The Statute of Artifi cers

46 Searchers of the dead

47 Norwich census of the poor

48 Punishing bastard getters

49 Elizabeth Bromley vs. Edith Griffyn

50 Dod and Cleaver on honesty

51 Antony Ratcliff

52 William Stout

53 Nehemiah Wallington

54 Nicholas Marden and friends

55 Mercurius Democritus

56 Sir Thomas Smith

57 Lucy Hutchinson

58 Announcing the Accession of Queen Mary I

59 Reasons for crowning the Prince and Princess of Orange jointly

60 Edward Coke on elections

61 The election at Ipswich 1640

62 Lambard on the assembly of women

63 Alice Baine and Dorothy Dawson

64 John Peatch

65 Sarah Walker

66 Brilliana Harley to her husband

67 1 Corinthians 1:27–29

68 Abiezer Coppe

69 Petition of the gentlewomen and tradesmen’s wives

70 The parliament scout 1643

71 A parliament of women

Guide to further reading

Index

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