Envisioning Women in World History: Prehistory to 1500

241 Pages·2008·1.57 MB·English

by  Catherine Clay

Confirming Pages
E W
NVISIONING OMEN
W H
IN ORLD ISTORY
P –1500, V 1
REHISTORY OLUME
CATHERINE CLAY
Shippensburg University
CHANDRIKA PAUL
Shippensburg University
CHRISTINE SENECAL
Shippensburg University
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd ii 1122//66//0077 44::3399::4499 PPMM
Revised Pages
Published by McGraw-Hill, an imprint of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221 Avenue of the
Americas, New York, NY 10020. Copyright © 2009. All rights reserved. No part of this publica-
tion may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or
retrieval system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., includ-
ing, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast
for distance learning.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOC/DOC 1 0 9 8
ISBN: 978-0-07-351322-5
MHID: 0-07-351322-9
Editor in Chief: Michael Ryan
Publisher: Lisa Moore
Senior Sponsoring Editor: Jon-David Hague
Editorial Coordinator: Sora Kim
Executive Marketing Manager: Pamela Cooper
Production Editor: Karol Jurado
Production Service: Anne Draus, Scratchgravel Publishing Services
Manuscript Editor: Carol Lombardi
Designer: Margarite Reynolds
Senior Production Supervisor: Tandra Jorgensen
Composition: 10/13 Palatino by Laserwords
Printing: 45# New Era Matte Plus, R.R. Donnelley & Sons
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Clay, Catherine.
Envisioning women in world history / Catherine Clay, Chandrika Paul, Christine Senecal.
—1st ed. p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-351322-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-07-351322-9 (alk. paper)
1. Women–History. I. Paul, Chandrika. II. Senecal, Christine. III. Title.
HQ1121.C623 2009
908.2—dc22 2007032970
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of
a Web site does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill, and McGraw-Hill
does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
Photo Credits:
Figure 1-1: © Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY. Figure 1-2: © Gail Mooney/Corbis. Figure 2-1:
© Scala/Art Resource, NY. Figure 3-1: © The Art Archive. Figure 3-2: © Borromeo/Art Resource, NY.
Figure 4-1: Thanks to Alan Cresswell. Figure 4-2: Photo courtesy of Shippensburg University
Fashion Archives and Museum. Used by permission. Figure 5-1: © Justin Kerr, K2887. Figure 5-2:
© Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY. Figure 5-3: © Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/
Art Resource, NY. Figure 7-1: © Fototeca Storica Nazionale/Getty Images.
www.mhhe.com
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd iiii 1111//1155//0077 33::2211::4422 PPMM
Confirming Pages
T C
ABLE OF ONTENTS
NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITORS iv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi
INTRODUCTION 1
CHAPTER ONE
WOMEN IN EURASIA BEFORE 1000 BCE 6
CHAPTER TWO
WOMEN IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN: CLASSICAL GREECE
AND IMPERIAL ROME (CA. 500 BCE –500 CE ) 32
CHAPTER THREE
THE HERITAGE OF THE GUPTA EMPIRE: INDIA
AND SOUTHEAST ASIA (CA. 320 BCE –1500 CE ) 62
CHAPTER FOUR
WOMEN IN TANG AND SONG CHINA (618–1279 CE ) 93
CHAPTER FIVE
MESO-AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS (CA. 200–1500 CE ) 125
CHAPTER SIX
WOMEN IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD: PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA
TO ABBASID CALIPHATE (CA. 500–1258 CE ) 153
CHAPTER SEVEN
WESTERN EUROPE IN THE CENTRAL AND LATE MIDDLE AGES
(1050–1500 C E ) 182
CONCLUSION 213
NOTES 219
SUGGESTED READINGS 227
INDEX 231
iii
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd iiiiii 1122//66//0077 44::3399::5522 PPMM
Revised Pages
N
OTE FROM THE
S E
ERIES DITORS
World History has come of age. No longer regarded as simply a task for
amateurs or philosophers, it has become an integral part of the historical
profession and one of its most exciting and innovative fi elds of study. At
the level of scholarship, a growing tide of books, articles, and conferences
continues to enlarge our understanding of the many and intersecting jour-
neys of humankind framed in global terms. At the level of teaching, more
and more secondary schools as well as colleges and universities now
offer, and sometimes require, World History of their students. One of the
prominent features of the World History movement has been the unusu-
ally close association of its scholarly and its teaching wings. Teachers at
all levels have participated with university-based scholars in the develop-
ment of this new fi eld.
The McGraw-Hill series—Explorations in World History—operates at
this intersection of scholarship and teaching. It seeks to convey the results
of recent research in World History in a form wholly accessible to begin-
ning students. It also provides a pedagogical alternative to or supplement
for the large and inclusive core textbooks that are features of so many
World History courses. Each volume in the series focuses briefl y on a par-
ticular theme, set in a global and comparative context. And each of them
is “open-ended,” raising questions and drawing students into the larger
issues that animate World History.
Women’s history may be the only fi eld of historical study more vig-
orous than World History over the last 40 years. Nevertheless, the sheer
volume of research and writing, after millennia of neglect, has made it dif-
fi cult for most scholars in women’s history to reach beyond the established
conceptual traditions of national histories. World History has taught us to
ask and try to answer larger questions about women than those posed
by national histories. What patterns can be discerned from the separate
histories of women over the globe? Have women always been subordi-
nate to men, or is patriarchy a particular historical development with a
beginning, middle, and perhaps an end? What historical conditions or
institutions repress or liberate women? What have women been able to
accomplish to shape their own destinies?
iv
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd iivv 1111//1155//0077 33::2211::4433 PPMM
Revised Pages
NOTE FROM THE SERIES EDITORS v
The authors of this book are ideally suited to help us answer these
questions. Catherine Clay, Chandrika Paul, and Christine Senecal are all
specialists in women’s history within particular cultures: Eurasia, India,
and ancient and medieval Europe, respectively. They are also all pas-
sionate, practicing world historians. We are proud to offer the fruits of a
collaboration that fi nally introduces, in engaging prose, the other half of
world history.
Robert Strayer
Kevin Reilly
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd vv 1111//1155//0077 33::2211::4444 PPMM
Confirming Pages
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project involved the assistance of many people, and the authors
would like to extend our sincere gratitude to the following: Sandy and
Sarah Hughes, whose involvement fi rst made this project possible and
who provided indispensable assistance in our research; Robert Strayer
and Kevin Reilly, who read early drafts of this book and gave sage advise
about shaping the major themes; Winston Black, Sabrina Joseph, Charles
Loucks, Jennifer Ottman, Jonathan Skaff, Susan Spicka, Robert Babcock,
Robin Fleming, and Vera Reber, whose scholarly expertise helped us
on individual chapters; the editors at McGraw-Hill and Scratchgravel
Publishing Services, including Anne Draus, Karol Jurado, and Sora
Kim, whose work saved us from many errors; the students of World
History I, Honors and general sections of Asia/Pacifi c History, and Com-
parative Women’s History classes at Shippensburg University who test-
drove early drafts and provided student feedback; and our department
chair, David F. Godshalk, department secretary, Mrs. Reed, graduate assis-
tant, Racheal Teates, and all our colleagues at Shippensburg University
who were extremely supportive of our writing endeavors. The authors also
acknowledge the legacy of the scholars of women’s history, whose work
provided the foundation for this book. Of course, any errors in our book
are entirely our responsibility, and not that of these excellent scholars.
On a personal level, we each owe an irredeemable debt to our par-
ents for their loving upbringing. In addition, Catherine Clay would like
to thank Alan, Josefi ne, Evan, and Nathaniel for competing so stoically
and lovingly with this project. Chandrika Paul would like to thank her
close friend David Godshalk for his support and help during this project.
Finally, Christine Senecal would also like to thank her husband, David De
Bruin, and children, Peter and Gabrielle, for making her life so enjoyable.
vi
ccllaa1133222299__ffmm__ii--vvii..iinndddd vvii 1122//66//0077 44::3399::5533 PPMM
Confirming Pages
I
NTRODUCTION
Humanity is male and man defi nes woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not
regarded as an autonomous being. . . . And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is
called “the sex.” . . . She is defi ned and differentiated with reference to man and he with
reference to her; she is incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the
Subject, he is the Absolute—she is the Other. . . . But it will be asked at once: how did all
this begin? . . . How is it that this world has always belonged to men? (de Beauvoir, 1980)1
Over and over again women heard in voices of tradition . . . that they could desire
no greater destiny than to glory in their femininity. Experts told them how to dress,
look, and act more feminine. . . . They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine,
unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. . . . (Friedan, 1963) 2
In 1953, the English translation of Simone de Beauvoir’s L e Deuxieme Sexe
(The Second Sex) was published in the United States. De Beauvoir offered
an explanation of the lower status of women in society. Her book, along
with Betty Friedan’s T he Feminine Mystique (1963), became the seminal
works defi ning the early 1960s women’s movement in the United States.
As the above quotes demonstrate, de Beauvoir and Friedan are in agree-
ment that from beginning of historical time, women have led a peripheral
existence in comparison with men. Their works intensifi ed the intellectual
debate on the origins of patriarchy—that is, the institutional domination
of men over women. Some scholars disagreed with their analyses, argu-
ing that some societies have existed where women shared a rough parity
with men. Largely because of the vast differences in women’s experi-
ences in different societies, historians have yet to develop either a simple
explanation for the origins of patriarchy or a universal description of its
manifestations.
Our book, Envisioning Women in World History: Prehistory to 1500 CE ,
addresses these issues from a global perspective. A comparative approach
to Women’s History enables us to point out broad patterns in women’s
experiences while acknowledging change across time and space. Women’s
roles have been neither universal nor static, but their power within fami-
lies, their sexual and reproductive rights, and their economic and political
infl uence have waxed and waned. Consequently, the meanings and mani-
festations of women’s agency, or power, have also varied. Women have
not always been able to confront their oppression; indeed, the inequality
among genders may have even been embraced by the wealthiest women
1
ccllaa1133222299__iinnttrroo__000011--000055..iinndddd 11 1111//1144//0077 22::2233::0011 PPMM
Revised Pages
2 INTRODUCTION
in societies, who saw it as essential for maintaining their elite position.
Over time, some urban societies allowed women more proactive roles in
certain areas such as religion or economics. However, even in these cir-
cumstances, women never achieved full equality with men.
HISTORIOGRAPHY
From their inception in the 1960s, the disciplines of World and Compara-
tive History have grown exponentially. In this age of globalization, univer-
sities, colleges, and high schools across the United States are increasingly
recognizing the importance of these disciplines in raising awareness of
diverse societies. In addition, over the past 40 years, Women’s History has
emerged as an area of serious historical research, generating interest in
such fi elds as the history of sexuality, masculinity, and gender. However,
within these growing disciplines, few scholars have attempted to “glo-
balize women’s history.” 3 Cross-cultural studies of women’s experiences
have been at best minimal.
To remedy the situation, as early as 1984 the Organization of Ameri-
can Historians embarked on an ambitious project to integrate information
available on non-Western women. The result was R estoring Women to His-
tory, Volumes 1–4, which was aimed at providing readers with a thematic
historical overview of non-Western women’s experiences. In 1995, world
historians Sarah and Brady Hughes made an important contribution by
integrating World and Women’s History with their primary-source collec-
tion entitled W omen in World History . In their fi rst volume, these authors
asserted that learning about women’s experiences in the premodern world
is a necessary prerequisite for understanding the modern constructions of
femininity. Modestly labeling their work “an appetizer, though one which
opens up a very promising banquet,” 4 they were truly the pioneers to
“globalize women’s history.” In 2001, Peter Stearns published G ender in
History , which provided an overview of a very large period. In writing
this textbook, our goal is to provide undergraduate World History stu-
dents with a synthetic and comparative historical analysis of patriarchal
structures and women’s experiences in several of the most representative
premodern civilizations.
SOURCES
There is a ubiquitous problem for studying the premodern history of
women—the nature of the sources. First, compared with later centuries,
there are relatively few written sources—such as law codes, religious
texts, letters, diaries, autobiographies, novels, and plays—authored by
ccllaa1133222299__iinnttrroo__000011--000055..iinndddd 22 1100//2255//0077 55::0077::0099 PPMM
Revised Pages
SOURCES 3
women before 1500 CE . Those that do exist are skewed, because they
refl ect the views of only an exclusive group of women in society. During
the premodern period, writing was a skill accessible only to elite women
or those who rebelled against patriarchal constraints by adopting an alter-
native lifestyle such as joining a Buddhist monastery, entering a Christian
convent, or becoming a Sufi mystic (options that were typical mainly for
the wealthiest in society). They offer us signifi cant clues into upper-crust
social relations, but these women’s marginality dramatically infl uenced
what they could and could not say. As a consequence, even surviving
women’s sources are fi lled with gaps and distortions.
For most regions of the world, our knowledge about ordinary wom-
en’s lives before 1500 CE is even more limited. For example, there are no
formal sources on the reactions of Aztec peasant women to the tribute sys-
tem that ran their economy or the human sacrifi ces that their priests per-
formed regularly. As some elite social practices such as sati (Gupta India),
foot binding (Song China), or veiling (some communities in ancient Meso-
potamia and the Islamic world) slowly percolated downward to include
women from lower classes, we have no way of ascertaining their responses
or resistance to the spread of such customs.
Therefore, faced with the paucity of women’s and non-elite voices,
scholars must examine those sources primarily authored by privileged
men to help reconstruct the lives of premodern women. The biases of
these authors are themselves evidence for male expectations about women
in their respective societies. For example, fourth-century Athenian play-
wrights made their female characters speak, but the minds that composed
the words were male. Other examples of such skewed but important pri-
mary sources are the Laws of Manu from the Gupta Empire in India, the
Sharia from the Abbasid caliphate, or Confucius’s Three Obediences from
Classical China. Usually the ideal role advocated for women in these doc-
uments was one of passivity, controlled sexuality, and strict adherence to
domesticity. Primarily aimed at the elite, these sources set the guidelines
for women’s behavior that women were expected to follow. Yet these were
only ideals and did not represent real women’s actions. In reality, we can
conjecture that some elite women challenged the patriarchal constraints
enforced on them. Others were content with their situation or even uti-
lized the power structure to achieve a degree of authority.
An additional problem with the sources is the unrepresentative infor-
mation about the accomplishments of those women who played a vis-
ible but secondary role to their famous husbands. For example, we know
a lot more about Khadija and Aisha, the wives of Prophet Muhammad,
or Zubaida, the wife of the Abbasid Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, than about
the lives of female peasants or workers who lived during the same time
ccllaa1133222299__iinnttrroo__000011--000055..iinndddd SSeecc11::33 1100//2255//0077 55::0077::1100 PPMM