The Cultural Identity of Seventeenth Century Woman - A Reader (Hardcover, illustrated edition)

This anthology presents extracts from a wide variety of 17th-century sources illustrating the ways in which the cultural notion of "woman" was then constructed. Although the dominant ideology was unquestionably patriarchal, and many of its manifestations were misogynistic, it was also diverse, self-questioning, contradictory, and committed to living. In the text, 200 passages are topically arranged to represent the chief contexts in which women were anatomized, described, admonished, berated, represented, exemplified, lectured and eulogized. Subjects covered include: the female body and sexuality; the significance of female beauty; female vices and virtues; marriage, adultery and divorce; wifely and maternal duties; women's work and involvement in public affairs; and women's role as the inspiration and object of artistic imagination. Four subsequent sections illustrate subversive ideas, transgressive behaviour and radical challenges to patriarchy which anticipate later feminist arguments.