However, women were regarded as inferior to men. Although women could be extremely powerful - a notable example was Eleanor of Aquitaine - and there were women writers, composers and artists their role was essentially to get married, be good wives and bear children. Sons were preferable to daughters so that the estate could be carried on. Having children in those days was extremely dangerous - many women died in childbirth.
Becoming a nun was the only other valid choice of career. Nuns were usually very well-educated and some abbesses were very powerful.
Daughters were usually sent away at a very young age to other castles or convents for their education. They were taught 'weaving, sewing, embroidery, cooking, social graces and household administration.1 as well as reading and writing. Often women were better read and had wider interests than men. (Not unusual now, either!)
Marriage was a business - marriages of convenience in which the money of wealthy families could be merged were the rule. Preferably daughters would be married to rich, landowning men of the same class. (This sounds rather nice, but it is arguable that many married women were extremely unhappy - we're about to see why.) Girls were often betrothed at nine or ten and married in their early teens. Children were also borne by girls as young as thirteen. Early marriage was popular in case the father died before the child came of age leading to a possible depletion of estates. Daughters would usually have no say as to the choice of husband.
Elizabeth Paston is an example of this. Her parents chose a rich widower for her when she was fifteen. He was Stephen Scrope, a man of fifty who stated that he 'had suffered a sickness that kept me a thirteen or fourteen years en- suing, whereby I am disfigured in my person and shall be whilst I live'.2 Needless to say, Elizabeth wasn't keen - he hardly sounds like a 'knight in shining armour' - and refused. Her mother then kept her at home away from other men and had her beaten often. After this cruel treatment Elizabeth consented, but the marriage luckily didn't take place. She was eventually married, but it isn't known whether the marriage was happy or not.
In many cases husbands would be much older. Girls of sixteen could be married to men of fifty, for example.
Wives were obliged to familiarise themselves with the duties of the seneschal so that they could take care of the estate
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