Women in the century of the Enlightenment

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………5 Chapter I  The Woman s Evolution from the Middle Ages to the Classical Period (18-century)………………………………………………………………………….…..10
1. Defining terms and concepts………………………………………………….10
2. The medical understanding of woman s body………………………………..11
2.1. Sex and gender………………………………………………………….11
2.2. Menstruation…………………………………………………………….14
2.3. Parturition……………………………………………………………….16
2.4. Changes and continuities………………………………………………..17
3. Religious teaching …………………………………………………………….18
4. The law and its administration ………………………………………………..20
4.1. Marital status…………………………………………………………….20
4.2. Marriage, separation, child custody……………………………………..21
4.3. Crimes by and against women ………………………………………….22
5. Stereotypes…………………………………………………………………….23
5.1. Maid, wife and widow…………………………………………………..23
5.2. The scold, the whore and the witch……………………………………………………………………………..25
6. Adult life ……………………………………………………………………...26
6.1. Marriage…………………………………………………………………26
6.2. Maternity………………………………………………………………...28
6.3. Single women …………………………………………………………...31
7. Female friendship……………………………………………………………...32
8. Female consciousness and feminism………………………………………….35

Chapter II  Women in the century of the Enlightenment ………………………………37
1. The concept of the Enlightenment…………………………………………….37
2. Aristocracy in the 18th century………………………………………………...39
3. Woman as the other for men in the 18th century……………………………41
3.1. Brief critical view……………………………………………………….41
3.2. Men s glance……………………………………………………………45
3.2.1. The feminine nature……………………………………………….45
3.2.2. The woman s reason………………………………………………46
3.2.3. The role of women………………………………………………...46
3.3. Married women………………………………………………………….47
3.3.1. Marriage in contradiction………………………………………….48
3.3.2. The Enlightenment couple………………………………………...49
3.3.3. The folk couple……………………………………………………49
3.4. The women at work…………………………………………………….50
3.4.1. Workers……………………………………………………………50
3.4.2. Women with unequal status……………………………………….51
3.5. Education of the Enlightenment s daughters …………………………..51
3.6. The women of culture…………………………………………………..52
3.6.1. Reading……………………………………………………………52
3.6.2. Writing…………………………………………………………….53
3.7. Prostitution……………………………………………………………...54

Chapter III  Moll Flanders  the woman s identity derived from the fight for life…... 57

Chapter IV  Pamela: the woman hero as a refusal of the objective realities of social rank and the symbol of virtue…………………………….....................……………..70

Chapter V  Jane Austen s Emma: Independence vs Marriage………………………….88
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..96
References………………………………………………………………………………99