Women During The Ancient World - 1445 Words

In the ancient world, women were generally discriminated and deemed inferior to men. As a result, women in various civilizations were expected to uphold sexist stereotypes, which limited their freedoms and abilities. Two such civilizations were Ancient Rome and Early Modern England. England during the 15th and 16th centuries supported the Anglican faith. Women, by divine belief, were created as subordinates to men; the rationale for this constitutes the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, suggesting that women were made for man. Sexist bias was also supported in Rome (753 B.C. to 1453 A.D.) where the traditional ambitions of all women were to wed unknowingly, birth abundantly, and serve their husbands unfailingly. These notions†¦show more content†¦The legal rights of married women were similar in Early Modern England and Ancient Rome. In Early Modern England weddings were often arranged to benefit both families in terms of power and wealth.1 As a result, women seldom had a choice in whom they married. However, this was not the case in royalty where marriage was more complicated. An unwedded queen produced no legitimate heirs while the husband of a wedded queen would challenge the power she had. This was because marriage granted the husband ownership of his wife and her rights, yet a queen born from the English crown was to be the authoritative figure. Queen Elizabeth resolved this by not marrying at all, and power was inevitably passed to King James VI of Scotland postmortem.2 In the case of the common peoples, a married woman wasn’t able to make legal contracts, keep her wages, sue, or inherit her husband’s belongings in case of death. A woman was granted the right of separating from her husband under mensa et thoro, which allowed them to live apart but they were still legally married and therefore couldn’t remarry. The husband was given the children.3 As a result, marriage gave the husband the ultimate authority in all affairs relating to his wife. The limited freedoms married women had could’ve even worked against them as the queen risked her authority and her married, female subjects risked