HIEU 164 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Jean Bodin, Masculinity, Cross-Dressing
HIEU 164 – Textbook Notes (Wiesner-Hanks) – Chapter 8: Gender and Power
• Men creating public realm because they felt left out of childbirth
Female Rulers
• Most extreme opponents of female rule were Protestants during reign of Mary Tudor
o Rule unnatural, unlawful, against God
o "monster"
o Could never overcome being a woman, and subjects can revolt because ruler is a woman
• Queen could rule because she had inherited masculine qualities
• Jean Bodin: country like a household, and just like in household, man should reign
o Kings using to justify rule
o Using to criticize kings, saying they weren't fulfilling 'fatherly' duties
Husbandly Authority
• Because kings were absolute and got power from God, so did husbands under this new ideology
from Bodin
• Protestantism and Puritanism gave men larger religious and supervisory role than under
Catholicism
o Priests married, so clerical authority reinforced paternal and husbandly authority
o Mothers role in religion second to fathers
• Priests could be citizen and priest, but nuns could only gain citizenship through marriage, which
they couldn’t do
• Gender restrictions in electing clergy
o Even when allowed to vote, women often couldn't vote for high positions
• Women arguing that applying household to society meant that they could speak out about
political/religious matters since it was an extension of their public role as wives/mothers
• Domestic feminists: only through political rights could women carry out private duties since
political realm shapes public realm
• Increasing focus on parental consent to marry in France
• Women legally dependent, so people didn't even conceive of them having political rights
• Disobedient wives being imprisoned, beaten
• Adultery taken more seriously than domestic violence since it challenged male honor and
husbandly authority
o Defined as sex between married woman and not-husband, by 16th century also included
married man with not-wife
o Adultery by men did not threaten lineage like it did by women, so not taken as seriously and
had way less harsh punishments
Political Actions and Protests
• Women petitioning during English Civil War and being ignored, since they were supposed to be
silent and let their husbands speak for them
• Women who spoke out in public referred to as lower-class, sexually deviant, aggressive
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