renaissance household

RENAISSANCE HOUSEHOLD

The notion of the traditional English household during the Renaissance was based upon the marital relationship between a man and a woman.1 If the household is the primary site of family development, then marriage is the fundamental process by which families are formed and the bond through which they are sustained. Familial interactions, including husband-wife and parent-child, provide the contexts for identity performance in the household. The household becomes the “stage” on which the daily drama of family life is performed. Husbands, wives, parents, and children are each given gender-specific identity scripts and are expected to act accordingly. This section deals with the various ways in which individuals react and respond to the socially constructed definitions of gender and sexuality within the confines of the household.

The advent of printing in late 15th century England sparked revolutionary change in the construction of household duties. Men wrote and published household and marriage guides that incorporated cookbooks, home medicine remedies, blueprints for needlework designs, and manuscripts on what was suitable female education. The parenting aspects of these manuscripts often focused on the roles and responsibilities of daughters, reinforcing the notion of patriarchy.

Some of the seminal works of this time were William Gouge’s Of Domesticall Duties and Gervase Markham’s set The English Husbandmen and The English Housewife. Gouge’s document entails eight treatises on the specific duties of husbands, wives, parent, children, masters, and servants. He asserts that a wife upholds the authority of her husband just as government officers uphold the authority of the King.2 Markham resonates with Gouge’s assertion and furthers the distinction between husband and wife by stating that:

…the perfect husbandmen…is the father and master of the family… whose office and employments are ever for the most part abroad, or removed from the house, as in the field or yard…our English housewife… is the mother and mistress of the family, and hath her most general employments within the house; where from the general example of her virtues, and the most approved skill of her knowledges…3

In this statement, Markham highlights the spatial politics of gender relations in the home. The husband is designated ownership of the land and the property on which the family resides and his skills expand outward from the home. However the wife is relegated to the domestic sphere with her potential skill set confined to domestic duties. Tension surfaced in these spaces and performative negotiations occurred in relation to the implied roles and responsibilities of men and women in the household.

RESISTANCE TO GENDER CONSTRUCTION * SEXUALITY AND THE HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY * NON-TRADITIONAL HOUSEHOLDS