Introduction

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. Illustrations vii
4. Introduction ix
5. Part 1
6. Women’s History and Social History: Are Structures Necessary? 1
7. The Querelle des Femmes as a Cultural Studies Paradigm 17
8. Grammar in Arcadia 29
9. The Girl and the Hourglass: Periodization of Women’s Lives in Western Preindustrial Societies 41
10. Part 2
11. Getting Back the Dowry: Venice, c. 1360–1530 77
12. Daughters, Mothers, Wives, and Widows: Women as Legal Persons 97
13. Women Married Elsewhere: Gender and Citizenship in Italy 117
14. Part 3
15. “Saints” and “Witches”: in Early Modern Italy: Stepsisters or Strangers? 153
16. The Dimensions of the Cloister: Enclosure, Constraint, and Protection in Seventeenth-Century Italy 165
17. The Third Status 181
18. Part 4
19. “Non lo volevo per marito: in modo alcuno”: Forced Marriages, Generational Conflicts, and the Limits of Patriarchal Power in Early Modern Venice, c. 1580–1680 203
20. Becoming a Mother in the: Seventeenth Century: The Experience of a Roman Noblewoman 223
21. Space, Time, and the Power of Aristocratic Wives in Yorkist and Early Tudor England, 1450–1550 245
22. Eighteenth-Century Marriage Contracts: Linking Legal and Gender History 265
23. Part 5
24. En-Gendering Selfhood: Defining Differences and Forging Identities in Early Modern Europe 285
25. Construction of Masculinity and Male Identity in Personal Testimonies: Hans Von Schweinichen (1552–1616) in His Memorial 305
26. About the Contributors 325
27. Index 329