Gender and Space in Early Modern England
Title Details

216 Pages

23.4 x 15.6 cm

Series: Royal Historical Society Studies in History New Series

Series Vol. Number: 55

Imprint: Boydell Press

Gender and Space in Early Modern England

by Amanda Flather

  • Description
  • Reviews
A nuanced re-evaluation of the ways in which gender affected the use of physical space in early modern England.

Space was not simply a passive backdrop to a social system that had structural origins elsewhere; it was vitally important for marking out and maintaining the hierarchy that sustained social and gender order in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Gender had a considerable influence on its use and organization; status and gender were displayed physically and spatially every moment of the day, from a person's place at table to the bed on which he orshe slept, in places of work and recreation, in dress, gesture and modes of address.
Space was also the basis for the formation of gender identities which were constantly contested and restructured, as this book shows. Examining in turn domestic, social and sacred spaces and the spatial division of labour in gender construction, the author demonstrates how these could shift, and with them the position and power of women. She shows that the ideologicalassumption that all women are subject to all men is flawed, and exposes the limitations of interpretations which rely on the model and binary opposition of public/private, male/female, to describe gender relations and their changes across the period, thus offering a much more complex and picture than has hitherto been perceived. The book will be essential reading not just for historians of the family and of women, but for all those studying early modern social history.

AMANDA FLATHER is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Essex.
"[A] fine book [.] offering a closely focused and nuanced examination of the practice of patriarchy in a range of arenas in seventeenth-century England. A rich and subtle work of gender analysis and a lovely illustration of what can be garnered from the incidental detail of court depositions to flesh out the dynamics of early modern social interaction." ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW

Paperback

9781843836506

September 2011

Buy

$36.95 / £24.99

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Hardcover

9780861932863

May 2007

Buy

£70.00 / $105.00

Shipping Options

Buy Ships within 2 business days

Buy

Purchasing options are not available in this country.

Title Details

216 Pages

2.34 x 1.56 cm

Series: Royal Historical Society Studies in History New Series

Series Vol. Number: 55

Imprint: Boydell Press