working life of women seventeenth century - School of Economics ...

PROFESSIONS 237PROFESSIONSIntroductory-Tendencies similar to those in Industry.-Army-Church-Lawclosed to women. Teaching-Nursing-Medicine chiefly ~ractised by womenas domestic arts. Midwifery.(A): Nursinp. The sick poor nursed in lay institutions-LondonHospitals-Dublin-Supplied by low class women-Women searchers forthe plague--Nurses for small-pox or plague-Hired nurses in private families.(B) Medrcrrie. Women's skill in Middle ages- Medicine practised extensivelyby women in seventeenth century in their families, among their friendsand for the poor-Also by the village wise woman for pay-Exclusiveness ofassociations of physicians, surgeons and apothecaries.(C) MidwifPry. A woman's profession-Earlier history unknown-Raynold's translation of " the byrthe of n1ankynd."-Relative dangers ofchild-birth in seventeenth and twentieth centuries-Importance of midwives--Character of their training-Jane Sharp-Nicholas Culpepper-Peter Chamberlain-Mrs.Cellier's scheme for training-Superiority of French training-Licences of Midwives-Attitude of the Church to them-Fees-Growkgtendency to displace midwives by Doctors.Conclusion. Women's position in the arts of teaching and healing lost as thesearte became profescional.Introductory.SIMILAR tendencies to those which affected theindustrial position of women can be traced in theprofessions also, showing that, important as was theinfluence of capitalistic organisation in the history ofwomen's evolution, other powerful factors were workingin the same direction.Three professions were closed to women in theseventeenth century, Arms, the Church and the Law.The Law.-Itmust be remembered that the mass ofthe" common people " were little affected by " the law"before the seventeenth century. " common law "was the law of the nobles,' while farming people andl Holdswortb, Vol. III., p. 408.artizans alike were chiefly regulated in their dealingswith each other by c;stoms depending for interpretationand sanction upon a public opinion whichrepresented women as well as men. Therefore thechanges which during the seventeenth century wereabrogating customs in favour of common law, didin effect eliminate women from what was equivalentto a share in the custody and interpretation of law,which henceforward remained exclusively in the handsof men. The result of the elimination of the feminineinfluence is plainly shown in a succession of laws,which, in order to secure complete liberty to individualmen, destroyed the collective idea of the family, anddeprived married women and children of the propertyrights which customs had hitherto secured to them.From this time also the administration of the lawbecomes increasingly perfuncto~y in enforcing the fulfilmentof men's responsihilities to their wives andchildren.Chzrrch.-According to modern ideas, religionpertains more to women than to men, but this conceptionis new, dating from the scientific era.Science has solved so many of the problems whichin former days threatened the existence of mankind,that the " man in the street " instinctively relegatesreligion to the region in which visible beauty, poetryand music are still permitted to linger ; to the ornamentalsphere in short, whither the Victorian gentlemanalso banished his wife and daughters. Thisattitude forms a singular contrast to the ideas whichprevailed in the Middle Ages, when men believedthat supernatural assistance was their sole protectionagainst the " pestilence that walketh in darkness "or from " the arrow that flieth by day." Religion wasthen held to be such an awful power that there weremen who even auestioned whether women could.properly speaking: be considered religious at all:Even in the seventeenth century the practice of