The Prospect Before Her
Apr. 25th, 2019 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kutsuwamushiI'm currently reading The Prospect Before Her by Olwen Hufton, a hefty piece of historical non-fiction on the lives of women in western Europe from 1500-1800. The scope is so broad that the author can hardly give any aspect of their lives the attention that they deserve, but it's very interesting so far.
There are some common threads, some expected and some not:
1. The need to prepare for marriage economically, i.e. by amassing a dowry - which many women wouldn't get from their families. They had to work and save up for it, frequently for a period of 12-15 years.
2. The types of jobs that women could get didn't dictate that they stay home. In fact, staying at home and working for the family could be disadvantageous, because the family didn't pay wages. Young women were surprisingly mobile! They often had to leave home to seek work as domestic servants or workers in allowable trades/proto-industries.
I'm not even a quarter of a way through the book yet, but the second point has gotten me thinking about the excuses people make for most protagonists in fantasy or historical fiction being men. One excuse is that it's harder to get a woman involved in a plot since her job is to stay at home. But that's not at all what life was like for most women during this time period.
And man, when your future hinges on your ability to save up a dowry, that's a pretty strong motivation to get involved in some shit.
There are some common threads, some expected and some not:
1. The need to prepare for marriage economically, i.e. by amassing a dowry - which many women wouldn't get from their families. They had to work and save up for it, frequently for a period of 12-15 years.
2. The types of jobs that women could get didn't dictate that they stay home. In fact, staying at home and working for the family could be disadvantageous, because the family didn't pay wages. Young women were surprisingly mobile! They often had to leave home to seek work as domestic servants or workers in allowable trades/proto-industries.
I'm not even a quarter of a way through the book yet, but the second point has gotten me thinking about the excuses people make for most protagonists in fantasy or historical fiction being men. One excuse is that it's harder to get a woman involved in a plot since her job is to stay at home. But that's not at all what life was like for most women during this time period.
And man, when your future hinges on your ability to save up a dowry, that's a pretty strong motivation to get involved in some shit.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-26 02:50 pm (UTC)They were and the author makes the point that this was a hard task requiring luck and good health; some women never saved enough, which hurt their prospects. The wages were awful and the options were indeed limited.
Before widespread industrialization there were some smaller industries, but the biggest source of jobs seems to have been domestic work. The girl would rely on social networks to find placement, which would likely be with a family in a different town. There were also things like being a dairy maid.
This is mostly working class girls, as any family with enough money would prefer their daughter stay home under close watch, as attitudes towards "gadding" women were extremely harsh. But working class girls were most girls.