“Give me next Good, an understanding Wife,
By nature wise, not learned by much Art.
Some knowledge on her side will all my Life
More scope of Conversation impart.
* * * * *
“A passive understanding to conceive,
And judgment to discern, I wish to finde.
Beyond that, all as hazardous I leave;
Learning and pregnant wit in Woman-kinde,
What it findes malleable maketh frail,
And doth not adde more ballast, but more sail.
“Domesticke charge doth best that Sexe befit,
Contiguous businesse so to fix the minde,
That leasure space for fancies not admit,
Their leasure ’tis corrupteth Womankinde.
Else, being plac’d from many vices free,
They had to Heav’n a shorter cut then we.
Books are a part of Man’s Prerogative,
In formall Ink they Thoughts and Voices hold,
That we to them our Solitude may give,
And make Time present travel that of old.”
Hitherto there had been two careers open to women—marriage and the conventual life. With the sweeping away of the religious houses there remained only the first. English family life has been lauded as the beau idéal of domesticity, but, as far as women were concerned, it was a very narrow ideal. There seemed no place for the daughters who failed to find husbands. One wonders what became of the unmarried women. They were probably condemned to drudge for their relatives, like Samuel Pepys’ sister, who came into his household as a servant.
There was much severity exercised towards children among all classes. Poor Lady Jane Grey pathetically relates how glad she was to go to her tutor to escape the blows, pinches, and constant reprimands which she received when in the presence of her parents, and Lady Jane was by no means of a refractory disposition. After this it is less surprising to find, at an earlier period, one of the Paston family, whose well-known letters throw so much light on domestic life in the fifteenth century, ill treated and beaten as if she were an unruly slave.
“She [Elizabeth Paston, daughter of Agnes Paston] was never in so great sorrow as she is nowadays,” wrote one of the relatives in June, 1454; “for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, ne not may see nor speak with any man, nor with servants of her mother’s, but that she beareth on her hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice on a day, and her head broken in two or three places.”
Dame Paston did not approve of having marriageable daughters about her at home. One she had sent to a certain Cousin Calthorp, who, when he was making changes in his household, wished to be rid of his charge. She writes in some perturbation to her son—
“He seth she waxeth hygh, and it wer tyme to purvey her a mariage. I marvell what causeth hym to write so now; outher she hath displeased hym or elles he hath takyn her with diffraught. Therfor I pray you comune with my Cosyn Clere at London, and wete how he is dysposyd to her ward, and send me word, for I shall be fayn to send for her, and with me she shall but lese her tyme, and with ought she will be better occupied she shall often tymes meve me and put me in gret inquietenesse. Remembr what labour I had with your suster, therfor do your parte to help her forth, that may be your wurchiep and myn.”
Girls married very young, and the poet who makes a daughter lament that at fifteen she had not found a husband, was probably not exaggerating.