Women

And

Family

"Most women say frankly they want a higher standard of living and are prepared to work for it" (Rowntree and Lavers).

Women, Family, and the Workforce

Women’s roles in society are often complex as they involve juggling responsibilities between paid work and family. The traditional role of women as homemakers, which can be traced to the prehistoric age, places an added strain on women entering the workforce.

Women and the Prehistoric Family

The most primitive people did not live in family units. Rather, every woman was mother to every child, and every child was brother or sister to every other child. Even during the most primitive of ages, though, women were already confined to the role of looking after the children and gathering wild fruits and grains while the men did the hunting. Around 30,000 B.C. the first pair-bonding began to develop. Primitive marriage was matrilocal and often difficult for the man because he had to work for his mother-in-law. The marriage bond was so weak, though, that if a woman died before her husband, he would be thrown out of her mother’s hut. The nature of marriage soon shifted from matrilocal to patrilocal, which meant that a man no longer had to work for his mother-in-law but could pay her a "bride price" for her daughter. This transition allowed man to move his wife into his hut and away from her mother (Stephenson 35).

Women and Families of Antiquity

Forerunners of the modern family structure emerged around 2500 B.C. Cuneiform tablets from this era reveal that fathers began giving their daughters dowries and that men and women exercised equal rights over their children (56). The subordinate status of women in Sumeria during antiquity was common throughout Europe. Society determined the value of a woman according to the number of children she bore, and man had the right to divorce or even drown his wife if she was barren. During the Heroic Age in Greece (1300-1200 B.C.), the lengthy tales of Homer reflected an attitude toward women that would persist for the next 2000 years. Homer often referred to the father as being the supreme figure and told how fidelity was expected of women but how men were allowed to take as many concubines as they pleased (94).

Women and Families of the Middle Ages

During the medieval period (A.D. 400-1400), a mannerly way of treating women--chivalry--emerged from feudal knighthood. Knights were sworn to protect the physical safety and chastity of maidens, and troubadours dedicated their lives to proclaiming the virtuous characteristics of women. This age of chivalry, however, did little to remedy the severe gender inequality because only an elite group of noble-born women were subjected to the excessive flattery (149). Although the New Testament proclaims that man and woman are equal in God’s eyes (Women's Roles), the sixth century religious Council of Macon actually debated whether women had souls. Not surprisingly, most females were still viewed as property during the medieval period. Fathers sold their daughters into pre-arranged marriages early so that if the father were to die, the marriage rights would not go to the lord of his manor. Marriage became a holy Christian sacrament, and although the Church blessed marriage, it still tolerated and even promoted wife beating (Stephenson 175). The work-roles of women during the medieval age did become more varied, though. Upper class women took part in politics, money-management, and border disputes, and they founded religious, educational, and health centers. Female serfs were also granted the right to maintain their own huts (194).

Large numbers of men and women began migrating to the city to work in factories. Women with babies simply took them along to the factory, and once the children reached the age of five or six, they were often put to work as well. Many women joined the workforce--even though the act was looked upon distastefully--out of desperation.

   The appearance of women in the labour market in the
   middle ages was due to the same reason as their work today; i.e., it
   was necessary for the married woman to earn a supplementary wage and
   necessary for the single woman to earn a livelihood.  In every class in
   western society marriage is a career, to which most girls aspire . . .
   but not all women could hope to marry.  (195)

Women and Families of the Renaissance

During the Renaissance (1400-1600) and the Protestant Reformation that accompanied it, women hoped for greater gender equality, but the Church and society continued to view them as the inferior of the sexes. Things did not change much in the realm of marriage, either, and girls were commonly married at the age of thirteen.

   As before the Renaissance, love had nothing to do with
   marriage. Among the lower classes, marriage was for carrying out
   household functions, cooking, making clothing, growing crops, raising
   children. Among the upper classes, marriage was for economic reasons--a
   man married the woman who could bring him the largest dowry or
   marriage was for political reasons (222).

The view of women as mere tools of reproduciton continued throughout the Renaissance. The pressure on women to reproduce actually grew as husbands increasingly demanded sons to carry on the family name. In concurrence with other eras, fidelity was expected of women but not of men. In a positive aspect of the Renaissance, increasing numbers of upper class girls began receiving formal education, which their male counterparts had been receiving for centuries, and the invention of the printing press allowed for more efficient home schooling of lower class girls (230).

Modern Women, Families, and the Workforce

Considering the many thousands of years women were viewed as subordinate figures within society, how is it possible that they elevated themselves to near gender equality in only a few centuries? The beginning of the women’s revolution within the family and workplace traces to the Enlightenment when educated women began opening their homes for discussion. During the "Salon Movement," as it is called, popular intellectuals such as Voltaire and Rousseau toyed with the ideal of equality for all, including women. Women played a major role in the ensuing French Revolution but were not extended any equalities afterwards (248). The Salon Movement proved successful, however, as it opened the doors for discussion of a topic that would have otherwise been considered ludicrous.

The Industrial Revolution catapulted women into the workforce. Thousands of men and women left the countryside for the factory, but life in the city was tough. Most families lived in run-down tenements, and mothers joined their husbands in the coal mines and textile factories out of despair; seventy-five percent of England’s population lived in or near poverty during the 1700s. Middle class women whose husbands earned wages sufficient enough to support a family did not enter the workforce because it was not respectable. They could no longer take up a trade within the home, either, because baking, textiles, etc., had been transferred to the factory. The middle-class woman was left with responsibility for the children and household chores while her husband went to work outside of the home. This phenomenon gave rise to our twentieth century concept of the "Hi honey, I’m home" family.

During the twentieth century, women were once again catapulted into the workforce by World War I and II. Although their wages were less than those of their male counterparts, all-female teams often out-produced all-male teams in ordnance and munitions factories (Women at War). The efficiency of these "soldiers of production" helped to eliminate the stigma associated with women entering the workforce prior to the World Wars. The multitude of advancements made toward complete gender equality make for difficult decisions. Many women feel they are abandoning their learned and traditional role as mother and homemaker by entering the workforce, but they also realize that in today’s materialistic society, their income is often a necessity.

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