Study Of Medieval Western Europe, Women's Legal Rights

Remarkable progress has been made on medieval western European women's rights from legal angle by western scholars. Linda E. Mitchell explores the matter in "Women in Medieval Western European Culture", but she does only a little about it. James K. Farge shows us a colorful picture about medieval marriage, family and law through detailed facts and documents in "Marriage, Family and Law in Medieval Europe". Another case in the point is James Menuge and his work "Medieval Women and the Law". He studies legal rights of women at various ages and ranks in the late middle ages, giving more concern about rights of will and wardship. These works are valuable for the study of legal rights of medieval western European women. However, little has been discussed about women's legal rights in public field, in religious life, in economic activities as well as the rights of heritance and education. In China, researches on this subject are rather weak and no related works have been published so far. So I attempt to do some preliminary discussions on it so as to put forward my own ideas.I'll discuss women's legal rights under public law and private law. Women's rights were strictly restricted in public law. They hardly had any rights in public activities, namely, they couldn't be a public officer, neither appearing in the court nor taking part in the public assembly. They were also discriminated in religious life: they couldn't be a priest or given any holy office. While in the economic field they shared the same unfavorable situations: working within the houses and taking care of child, no matter in the city or countryside. As for the working women, their economic activities were limited with each past day, and they were eventually expelled to the marginal work with poor reward. Furthermore, their lack of supports and guarantee from government and law made their work and contributions valueless, thus their status were always lower than male in the society.On the other hand, medieval western women did enjoy some rights inprivate law. Many detailed rules attached much attention to women, not only the rights of marriage and property in canon law, but the rights of heritance and will in secular law as well. However, these rights they enjoyed were not intact at all. To some degree, they were always restricted by social or traditional factors. Married women are most typical. They must submit to their husband's authority regardless of how much contributions they had made. All the legal rights they enjoyed before marriage were absorbed by husbands as soon as they married, As a result, their "personality" disappeared in the social life. Other legal rights of women, such as contract, suit and education as well, to some extent, are similar to what I mentioned above.By and large, medieval western European women enjoyed limited and incomplete legal rights. Undoubtedly, their legal status was pretty low in the society.