The Feudal Castle and Its Life.
The feudal village lay beneath and about the castle. There was a complete social separation between the life in the castle and that in the village surrounding it. They pursued a different life, as the lord and his retainers were engaged in war or the chase or lived in idleness, while the people of the village were laborers. There became a wide separation between the village and the castle and special privileges grew up about the dwellers of the castle and, through inheritance, a nobility arose that lived in idleness and came to looking down upon and really despising the common people.
This isolation of the castle did, though, bring a closer relation between the members composing its family. However much the lord might go out for war or for adventure, in the end he must return to his castle, as it was his home. Here he found his wife and children, with whom he must spend his time, mostly alone with them, so that close relations grew. When the lord was away from the castle, his wife must, naturally, have had charge of affairs and this would produce in her characteristics which would cause her to be respected by her lord and often to be considered his equal. It thus arose that domestic life came to mean much in that time and the family became the center of social relationship. The importance of the woman increased and the value of wife and mother became to be recognized beyond what had been known up to that time.