Sex and Subjection: Attitudes to Women in Early-Modern Society

This text examines males' attitudes to women, concentrating on the fact that if we are to understand how modern attitudes to women were formed, we must understand in what ways (if any) the revival of classical learning and the protestant reformation affected thought about women's place in society. Major claims that have been made about the impact of the Renaissance on the position of women are, similarly, in need of careful scrutiny. Claims that the period saw the first strirrings of feminism need to be assessed in the light of orthodox theory about women. Only by outlining the view to which feminists were responding - which is the purpose of this study - can we understand what feminists wrote. Issues addressed in this book include the intellectual, cultural, and biblical bases of women's subjection, coercion and consent, divorce and political independence. The views that have survived are of the educated elite but their thinking formed the basis on which attitudes to women were shaped.