From the Treasure...

I'm not sure if I understand this reading correctly, but if I do, I don't think I like it.  If I am understanding this correctly, we should take away from the reading that women should still be demurring to men? 

After all of the blatant discrimination of women that we read in the Greek / Roman texts, now we are seeing this happen again during the Middle Ages.  I understand that women were still viewed as "less than" by society, especially a male society. 

However what infuriates me is that this whole reading is cloaked in a subtext of how "a lady should act" as if to speak her own mind would be careless and rude.  That she should still subject herself to the whims of the man and in doing so should be the silent partner, so to speak, supporting her husband (I believe the reading even said child, if she is a widow) but never really standing up for herself.

What this reminds me of is the iconic images of the 50s where we had these notions of the "stay at home mom" who was perfectly happy cleaning, cooking and washing; making sure father's slippers and pipe were ready when he got home.  Even the TV shows like "Father Knows Best" which were cloaked in the idea of humor but were subtly reinforcing the notion that men were superior.

Again, I'm angry and frustrated over this because of the fact that it was supposed to be during the Middle Ages that we started to see the emergence of the "Age of Enlightenment" and knowledge building, but we were still subjugating women into an inferior role.

I think of my Grandmother who, during the 50s and 60s, almost single handed raised my mother and her five siblings because my Grandfather was suffering from the debilitating effects of Parkinson's Disease.  She raised five ladies and a gentlemen all to be upstanding and respectable people, and the notion that she was dependent upon a man and should bow and curtsy to a man is asinine.  She was my Grandfather's equal in every way.  She had no problem butchering and cooking chickens, nor did she have a problem sewing the quilts that adorned their beds.

Now if I have completely misinterpreted this reading, someone please correct me, but I would have to say that this is the reading that really hit a nerve with me.  Mostly because instead of being honest about how the author felt about women, again, the text is cloaked in a sense of "sweetness" as if women needed to be reminded on how to act in public.