Oh dear - how easy it is to use the values of today to measure the values of those who lived 400 years ago - I am remembering even as a child it was the norm to have large families - one of my classmates was from a family of 21 children with many being from families of 11 and 12 children so that it was considered that small families of less than 4 there was something wrong with either the wife's attitude or the marriage itself.
When you read some of the Women's poetry of subjugation then you realize even in poetry there was an effort to silence the voice of women whose work shed a light on their situation - In recent history Sylvia Path is still considered by many to be more psychotic than having a breakdown because she could not live the life of expectation for a women. The Bronte sisters as late as the 19Th century used male pseudonyms in order to get their first few novels published.
How recent is it that women have full access to education and in spite of the pill, that is only available in the last 50 years, there are still institutions that foster the concept of a marriage as being for the 'comfort' of men. And so, in the name of the rights and "comforts" of men if they stray out of marriage it is the wife's fault and without medical science to control her menstrual cycle many families would still be large.
How many of us even heard of Anne Finch considered to be one of the best poets of her era during the turn of the eighteenth century.
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/finch/finch-anne.htmlIn poetry early women poets are still ignored - many had large families - A look at most on-line list of women poets starts with Isabella Whitney 1560 - another woman poet we never hear about - here is an excerpt of one of her very long poems.
The time is come I must depart
from thee, ah famous city.
I never yet, to rue my smart,
did find that thou hadst pity.
Wherefore small cause there is that I
should grieve from thee to go.
But many women foolishly,
like me, and other mo'e,
Do such affixed fancy set
on those which least deserve,
That long it is ere wit we get,
away from them to swerve
However, more to the point - there is no mention of La Compiuta Donzella or Vernica Cambana or Chiara Matraini nor Lura Terracina - on and on from the thirteenth and Fourteenth Century.
Here are excerpts from the poetry of Medesta Dal Pozzo 1553-1592 who did write a few years after Isabella
Women in every age were by nature
endowed with great judgment and spirit,
nor are they born less apt than men to demonstrate
(with study and care) their wisdom and valor.
And why, if their bodily form is the same,
if their substances are not varied,
if they have the same food and speech, must they
have them different courage and wisdom?
Always one has seen and sees (provide that a
woman wanted to devote thought to it)
more than one woman succeed in the military,
and take away the esteem and acclaim from many men.
Just so in letters and in every
endeavor that men undertake and pursue;
women have achieved and achieve such good results
that they have no cause at all to envy men....
If when a daughter is born the father
set her with his son to equivalent tasks
she would not be in lofty and fair deeds
inferior or unequal to her brother,
whether he placed her among the armed squads
with himself, or set her to learn some liberal art.
But because she is raised in other pursuits
for her education she is held in low regard.
If the magician had not proposed the military
to Risamante, not disposed her heart toward it,
she would not in the end have carried out with her own hands
so many glorious feats of valor.
"I enjoy it more when it's held for an impossible thing."
Said the lady, "When I find a way
to expose myself to some dangerous undertaking,
I don't draw back; rather I enjoy it more
when it's held for an impossible thing."
The woman warrior, who had a soft and humane heart,
seeing she has the better of that quarrel,
runs to him, and with a pitiful hand
she hurriedly frees his head from the bloody helm;
and she demonstrates to everyone her victory
in his deadly pale face, from which she gains triumph and glory.
"What happened next elsewhere I'll sing."One of the books of poems I found years ago "
The Defiant Muse" is filled with the poetry of these early women. Their poetry is filled with how they felt chained and were impregnated willy nilly by father's, how they are subjected to arranged alliances that sometimes included marriage by their fathers - how they are loved by both thoughtful, usually young lovers and husbands in addition to being essentially raped by husbands or friends of the family -
As Gregory Clark says, in "
Human Capital, Fertility And the Industrial Revolution"..."Before the Industrial Revolution four features characterized all societies: high fertility rates, little education, the dominance of physical over human capital, and low rates of productivity growth."
All to say Donne's wife's death was not unusual nor, was the size of his family that in that time in history spoke to the success of a wife to keep her husband's interest. Wasn't it the movie the
French Lieutenant's Woman that Meryl Streep, reading bed shares the astonishing number of prostitutes active in London during the 19Th century therefore men were never more than a block away from someone who would provide 'comfort'.
Like y'all, I really get wound up on this issue of woman's basic rights and liberty but I also know that like it or not, history is a stepping stone path to very different attitudes and expectations for women. It is difficult to learn through the news that there are parts of the world were still women are at some distant point in emancipation as European women were prior to the last 50 years when we had available a safe means to control the number of conseptions.
