The Protestant Reformation has been both criticized and lauded for altering the medieval status of women. Protestant reformers placed significant emphasis on marriage and the role females played as wives and mothers. Taking their cue from New Testament passages relevant to the divine order, women were to be obedient to their husbands, educate the children, nurture, and show compassion to their spouses. In Act V of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Kate, referring to wives, declares that “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign…” A woman owed her husband the same duty as a subject owed to their prince.
Criticism of the Reformation Status of Women
Feminist historians argue that the Reformation, much like other great “watershed” movements in early modern history, harmed the status of women and represented a significant setback for females whose avenues of escape from the misogynist medieval period were eliminated. Frequently cited is the mass closure of convents and abbeys that had provided education and status for many women.
With the exception of lay females usually in the noble classes, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine, most “exceptional” females of the Middle Ages were associated with the religious life. Women like Hildegard of Bingen, Teresa of Avila, and Catherine of Sienna represented a unique clique of educated women whose influences extended to emperors and popes. Feminist historians have spent decades scouring the archives of the Middle Ages to chronicle the lives of these extraordinary women.
But this says very little about the tens of thousands of nuns that toiled daily, never reaching that same status. Although perhaps better off than the peasants beyond convent walls, religious congregations were far from Utopian. What is true, however, is that by the period of the Reformation, certain groups of women in non-religious affiliations had begun to exhibit a positive presence in fields that would be eliminated by the emerging Protestant culture.
These fields included candle-making and fish mongering. In North Europe, the Guild System regulating the sale of fish had begun to allow women, generally widows, the right to be the masters of their husband’s enterprises. The Protestant Reformation, in its quest to end all affinity with Catholic practices, ended the prohibitions that required fish be eaten on Friday and the many other important “feast days” of the church. Similarly, candles, important sacramentals in Catholic worship and daily practice, were eliminated.
Support for the Reformation View of Women
With the emphasis on marriage, Protestantism elevated women by redefining their roles within the patriarchal system. Protestant culture emphasized education for both sexes as a vital tool in perpetuating the dissemination of the rediscovered Pauline theology. Within a hundred years of the Reformation, Protestant societies throughout Europe and later in America were, in contrast, far more literate than in Catholic countries. The Huguenot experience in France is solid proof of this.
Protestantism also undertook to eliminate prostitution – yet another area in the Middle Ages that offered some form of independent status for women. By highlighting the proper sexual role for women within the confines of marriage, Protestantism may well have presented a view of women used by contemporary feminists to criticize prostitution and pornography, at least on philosophic grounds.
Expansion of Protestantism Tightens Females Roles
Historians have linked the European witch hunts with changing views of women. If women were weaker and more susceptible to the wiles of the devil, they needed the stronger protection of marriage, family, and a husband’s guidance. Martin Luther’s view on witchcraft was based on biblical passages that suggested women, left to themselves, could be open to such temptations. Consequently, as the Reformation expanded, even greater restrictions were places on females, a Protestant legacy that, in part, helped to form American perceptions of women well into the 20th Century.
Consulted sources:
- Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, editor, A History of Women: Silences of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1992)
- Steven Ozment, Protestants: The Birth of a Revolution (New York: Doubleday, 1992)
- Michael Streich, “Martin Luther and the Devil’s Domain: Witchcraft and Magic in the Popular Culture and Its Effect Upon a Protestant Social Order” Unpublished thesis, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
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