Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800Judith M. Bennett, Amy M. Froide University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013 M02 1 - 360 pages When we think about the European past, we tend to imagine villages, towns, and cities populated by conventional families—married couples and their children. Although most people did marry and pass many of their adult years in the company of a spouse, this vision of a preindustrial Europe shaped by heterosexual marriage deceptively hides the well-established fact that, in some times and places, as many as twenty-five percent of women and men remained single throughout their lives. |
Contents
1 | |
The Demographic Perspective | 38 |
Elite Responses to Singlewomen in High Medieval Paris | 82 |
4 Single by Law and Custom | 106 |
5 Sex and the Singlewoman | 127 |
Singlewomens Stories in Marie de Frances Lais and Later French Courtly Narratives | 146 |
Employment and Independence for Singlewomen in Germany 14001750 | 192 |
Communities and Opportunities | 217 |