Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index

Record Number: 5698
Author(s)/Creator(s): Stoertz , Fiona Harris.
Contributor(s):
Title: Young Women in France and England, 1050- 1300
Source URL: Journal of Women's History (Full Text via Project Muse) 12, 4 (Winter 2001): 22-46. Link Info target = '_blank'>Journal of Women's History (Full Text via Project Muse) 12, 4 (Winter 2001): 22-46. Link Info
Description:
Article Type: Journal Article
Subject (See Also): Ages at Marriage Female Adolescents Fostering Girls Life Cycle Marriage Noble Women Princesses Queens Sexuality
Award Note:
Geographic Area: British Isles;France
Century: 11-12
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Abstract: The early life stages of elite women in high medieval France and England were shaped by marriage to a considerable degree. Marriage prospects influenced their early education and place of residence, and the ceremony itself served as a symbolic rite of passage into "adulthood," something reflected in the vocabulary used to describe elite women. Nevertheless, since elite women generally married around the age of puberty or even earlier, contemporaries often showed consideration for the youth of recently married women, introducing them only gradually to adult sexual and social responsibilities and providing special caregivers for their protection and guidance. Full social adulthood for these women thus could arrive at different times, depending on each woman's age at marriage, early education, social position, motherhood, personality, and other factors. [Reprinted by permission of Indian University Press (at http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/journals].
Related Resources:
Author's Affiliation: Trent University, Ontario, Canada
Conference Info: - , -
Year of Publication: 2001.
Language: English
ISSN/ISBN: 10427961