than the commonalities in womens experience across Europe. Even the experience of the relatively small group of women who held political power was
diverse. Elizabeth It’s situation was very different from that of queen mothers in France such as Marie de Médicis, female rulers of eastern Europe such as Maria
Theresa, tsarinas such as Catherine the Great, or mothers of the sultans known as the valide-sultan in the Ottoman Empire. Thus perhaps the only generalization
safe to make is that gender shaped the lives of all early modern Europeans in complex ways, and that every development of the period was shaped by, and in
turn shaped, ideas about or structures of gender.
2.1.1 Definition of Woman
According to “The concise oxford dictionary of current English” by H.W.Fowler and F.G. Fowler 1951, Woman is adult human female, queen’s or
great lady’s female attendant, lady in waiting, and the feminine emotions.
According to the Merriam- Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus, Woman is an adult female person, feminine nature, and a female servant or attendant.
According to literature and language dictionary, that woman is:
1. Female human being past adolescence.
2. An adult female human.
3. Women considered as a group; womankind: “Woman feels the invidious
distinctions of sex exactly as the black man does those of color” Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
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4. An adult female human belonging to a specified occupation, group,
nationality, or other category. Often used in combination: an Englishwoman; congresswoman; a saleswoman.
5. Feminine quality or aspect; womanliness.
6. A female servant or subordinate.
7. Informal.
a. A wife.
b. A female lover or sweetheart. See Usage Note at lady, man, person
According to Saint Jerome, Woman is a temple built over a sewer. It is contrary to the order of nature and of the law for women to speak in a gathering.
According to Plato, Woman are those who fell prey to their irrational, emotional side, and are therefore incapable of reason and making rational choices.
Moreover as irrational beings, women may not always know what they really want, and so it is the man’s domain to decide for them.
According to Aquinas, woman is defective and misbegotten.
According to Truth, 1870 by Jules Joseph Lefebvre
A woman is an adult female human being. The term woman irregular plural:
women usually is used for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. However, the term woman is also sometimes used to
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identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as Womens rights.
According to Pope Innocence III, said that the wickedness of woman is greater than all other wickedness. A dragon is more curable than the familiarity of
a woman. Avoid them like poisonous animals.
According to King James, said that to make women learned and to make a fox tame works out to the same end, educating a woman or a fox simply makes
them more cunning.
There are some opinions about woman from many sources:
Do not admire your wife’s beauty . . . from the time women are fourteen years old they think of nothing and aim at nothing except going to bed with men.
Epictetus.
Even the most virtuous of women is a witch. Oral Jewish Law.
The courage of a man is shown in his ability to command. The courage of a woman is found in obeying. Aristotle.
By all means get married. If you get a good wife, you will be happy. If you get a bad wife, you will become a philosopher. Socrates.
Because of you we are punished by death… because of you, women, the Son of God had to die. Tertullian.
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Men should not listen to a woman even if she says admirable things or if she says saintly things. They are of little consequence since they come from the
mouth of a woman. Origen.
A man may marry again if he has divorced his sinful wife because he is not restricted in his right as is the woman, because he is her head.
Ambrose.
We have courtesans for our sex and pleasure. We have young slave prostitutes for our physical use and we have wives to bring up legitimate children.
Demosthenes.
By herself woman is not of the image of God. The man, on the other hand, alone, is the image of God. Agustine.
For a man to go to a woman for advice is like going to the lowest kind of animal to seek advice. Chrysostom.
There is no gown or garment that worse becomes a woman than when she would be wise. Martin Luther.
All women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior to the male. Calvin.
Womanhood is the period in a females life after she has transitioned from
girlhood, at least physically, having passed the age of menarche. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolize a womans coming of age, such as confirmation
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in some branches of Christianity, bat mitzvah in Judaism, or even just the custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday generally between 12 and 21.
Currently in the English language there is no commonly used word for a woman who has passed menopause, although historically a woman in the third
part of her life was known as a crone, which was originally not a pejorative term. The three ages of woman were historically known as maiden, matron, and crone
and are sometimes quoted as maiden, mother and crone. This could perhaps be rendered in modern English as little girl, woman of reproductive age and
older lady.
The word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl
originally meant young person of either sex in English; it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child.
Nowadays girl sometimes is used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman. During the early 1970s feminists challenged such use, and use of the
word to refer to a fully-grown woman may cause offence. In particular, previously common terms such as office girl are no longer used.
There are various words used to refer to the quality of being a woman. The term womanhood merely means the state of being a woman, having passed the
menarche; femininity is used to refer to a set of supposedly typical female qualities associated with a certain attitude to gender roles; womanliness is like
femininity, but is usually associated with a different view of gender roles;
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femaleness is a general term, but is often used as shorthand for human femaleness. Distaff is an archaic adjective derived from womens conventional
role as a spinner, now used only as a deliberate archaism. Multiversity is a neologism derived from the Latin meant to provide a female counterpart of
virility, but used very loosely, sometimes to mean merely womanhood, sometimes femininity, and sometimes even as a collective term for women.
2.1.2 Feminism
