Study On The Phenonmenon Of Women Celibacy In Early Modern England

Celibacy,a state contrary to marriage in social life,is also integral component in human life.During a certain historical period,increased celibacy are always related to temporal social and historical changes.With the growing of women celibacy,it became an peculiar phenomenon in.England society,and it influenced on the development of England society in early modern times.At present,historians do not give a fair treatment for this problem.This article try to discuss.This article is divided into three chapters.The first chapter discusses the women celibacy situation in early modern England.The proportion of celibacy women show the trend of growth.They lived like this in non marital status.They were engaged in different occupations outside of family and took responsibility for assisting,looking after and accompanying the family in family.They also made friends in spare time.Finally,although the law status of celibacy women were equal to men,however,in reality life they owned low status.The second chapter mainly discusses the reasons for the increase of celibacy women in early modern England.First,economic limit,because the rise of marriage portion and low real wage level would delay the women marriage and make celibacy choice.The wealth family could not afford to the daughters’ high marriage portion,while the poor family’s daughters earned low real wage and saved dowry need long time,both two were caused some women did not marry.Second,sex imbalance,the wars took away the lives of married men,the man flowed abroad and women moved city and affected by the choice of spouse in the region,the man were more vulnerable to the plague than the women,these form an unbalance of sex distribution and promoted women kept celibacy.Third,religious reasons,some women inherited Christian celibacy and under the influence of religious endogamy,celibacy became a performance of pious faith.Forth,there are some women given up marriage because of personal disease and deformity and their subjective wills.All in all,different factors made so many women fail to marry.The third chapter mainly illustrates that increasing celibacy women had an effect on England society.Foremost,celibacy women because independent live state shaped independent ideological consciousness,and then reassessed themselves.In addition,celibacy women from private areas to public areas,when they got economic independent means that requested other sides independent development.It posed a potential threat to man in England society.Last but not least,celibacy women who wasted some fertility resources and slightly affected the decline in birth rate.The epilogue involves that England women were exposed gradually on account of celibacy problem,and they gained extensive attention in early modem England.However,they received more unfairly discrimination and exclusion attention.Women kept celibacy have characteristics of the times and sociality.We could not impose the problem on the female body all the time,the nation,society and family also shoulder some responsibilities.Through known the early modern England celibacy women,I hope that not only give them a fair treatment but also notice more the marginalization women.