Keeping her in the family : women and gender in Southampton, c1400-c1600

This thesis is based on the proposition that women were subordinate to men in all aspects of medieval society, an inequality constructed by a patriarchal system of gouvernment, operating both within and outside the family. In effect the thesis is a reply to Judith Bennett's call for local studies which could inform our understanding of patriarchy in that it examines gender relations in Southampton between 1400 and 1600.In examining how the family constructed gender during childhood, adolescence, marriage and widowhood, I look at the different roles women were expected to occupy, and conclude that these determined their ability to engage in activities beyond the household. I argue that the significance of the housewife's role has been underestimated, and provide evidence to suggest that housewifery provided women with a distinct economic role.I then argue that women's familial roles both constrained and enabled their work in the formal economy, their marginal relationship to both craft production and trade is explained by the gendered organisation of the economy, and demonstrated in the structure of the alleged women's "guild" of wool-packers. Evidence suggests that the "Golden Age" did not exist in Southampton where a continuity in women's economic activity between the late-medieval and early-modern periods is demonstrated.The gendered relations of property - including both real property and chattels - are seen to be inextricably linked with women's familial roles. Though it is suggested that some women were afforded a degree of control over chattels - and that a few women were prepared to challenge the laws of inheritance - the conclusion that women were passive carriers of the patrimony is inevitable.