On its surface the constancy of women’s place in society is depressing, but the thing about social constructs is that they are just that — constructs. Fundamentally if we have created these strictures, then we can deconstruct them and make new ones. Seeing the past and rejecting it allows us to imagine new futures and make the changes that are necessary to create a more equitable world. It’s time to start constructing that different future.
Medievalist Eleanor Janega (with an MA in Mediaeval Studies and a PhD in History) states that her intent is to look to the past in order to understand our present, and hopefully, to construct a future that sees more equality between the sexes. In The Once and Future Sex, Janega primarily focusses on how the people of power and influence in the Middle Ages regarded women in four broad categories — how their weird bodies worked, ideals of beauty, fears of their sexuality, what work they did outside the home — and while this book is loaded with frequent quotes and citations, it didn’t really add up to a cohesive thesis to me. I enjoyed the factoids, I liked the often ironic tone, I appreciate the intent, but I seem to be missing the throughline; I don’t know that these facts from the past explain women’s place in modern society. Certainly not a waste of my time — there is much of interest to be found here — I’m simply left wanting. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
One way or another, though, when we consider the way women are conceptualized in the global north, we can ultimately start laying the blame back to the ancient Athenians. They have a lot to answer for.
It’s always interesting to note that the Renaissance began with a few monarchs rediscovering the “Classics” and monasteries then teaching boys to read and write ancient Greek and Latin. This led to society taking as a given that the ancients (Plato, Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates) had human biology figured out with their humours theory, “Men were seen as hot and dry, or naturally sanguine and socially useful. Women, in contrast, were cold and wet and therefore more likely to be phlegmatic, or placid.” This combined with the Judeo-Christian origin story — Adam was made in God’s image (ie. the standard model) and Eve was formed (with inside-out genitals) from Adam’s superfluous rib (making woman the less god-like variant) — were the two theories that underpinned the “science” of how women’s bodies work. As for how those bodies should look:
All in all, medieval society spent a long time concocting a beauty ideal for women that was possible only for wealthy women to live up to, and then furiously policing it when commoners tried to emulate it. At every opportunity women were told that they must be beautiful, and that that made them desirable, lovable, and holy. However, attempting to live up to this rigid standard, especially if one was poor, was called sinful and at times was illegal. The Church thrust women into an impossible quandary: If they were not born with looks that accorded with the beauty standard, should they lose status and perhaps remain single? Or should they use subterfuge to get closer to that exacting standard, even if it meant they might face an eternity in Hell?
Janega writes that the Classics — while noting the beauty of various goddesses, mythical creatures, even Helen of Troy — don’t actually describe what that beauty looks like. It isn’t until the sixth-century that elegiac poet Maximianus (who linked himself to the classical tradition through his Etruscan lineage) wrote the first such description, saying that the ideal woman had: Golden hair, downcast milky neck, ingenious features to make more of her face; black eyebrows, free forehead, bright skin and little swollen lips. Maximianus and his poetry were used to teach Latin in the mediaeval period, and his idea of beauty was reinforced by those who would later pen guides to composing poetry: Matthew of Vendôme (twelfth century) in his The Art of the Versemaker and Geoffrey of Vinsauf (fl. 1200) in Poetry Nova. And apparently this societal conditioning is the entire reason why gentlemen prefer blondes?
Janega notes that the most damaging aspect of this beauty ideal is that it was impossible for poor women to attain (peasants working the fields are unlikely to have a “milky neck”), and for those who might turn to cosmetics to attain the standard, both the Church — who equated makeup with the Whore of Babylon riding the seven-headed beast into the Apocalypse — and the continuing belief in humour theory — it was apparently verboten for a woman to depilate because a whiskery chin signalled a poisoned womb to potential partners — made it clear that a woman was supposed to be naturally beautiful, but also modest and chaste. And speaking of sex:
To be honest, the likelihood that medieval women inserted live fish into their vaginas and then fed them to their husbands was probably low. It cannot be ruled out, but all in all it seems unlikely, no matter how lacking their sex lives might have been. However, actual practice mattered less than the fact that Burchard found such behavior plausible and enough of a worry that he advised clergy members to interrogate female parishioners about it. The idea that women were horny enough to suffocate a fish in their genitals if it meant more and better sex was one thing. It was another that they were willing to do occult magic and endanger their soul.
Thinking at the time was that women wanted sex more than their weary partners (for reasons relating to humour theory and Christian fear of women’s strange bodies) and this led to the Malleus Malificarum (Hammer of Witches) written by Church inquisitor Heinrich Kramer (ca. 1430– 1505): a guide for rooting out all the lusty witches consorting with the devil to sate their unnatural needs. Janega contrasts this to the tropes of today — the randy husband begging his frigid wife for sex — but she doesn’t really explain how this flip occurred. Her last section is on women’s work outside the home, and while she writes that we think of this as a recent phenomenon, she stresses that this was the case even in mediaeval times:
Women have always been a part of the world’s economy writ large. In fact, women’s work in the premodern world is generally ubiquitous. The idea that women largely existed in a domestic bubble wholly removed from the realities of labor and work would have seemed laughable to medieval people. In all classes of society, women worked and were expected to do so.
From peasants and other outdoor labourers to ladies-in-waiting; brewers and bakers and laundresses; from sex workers to those who took Holy Orders, Janega describes all of the roles that women played in the mediaeval economy…but this hardly felt like new information. While the information that Janega shares about these jobs was all interesting, I couldn’t really see how it relates to society today. And that is the point: “Society” hasn’t been made out of whole cloth — every belief about the differences in the sexes has been passed down from earlier times and a more equitable future begins with deconstructing those beliefs. I get that. I just didn’t really get that from this book. Still an interesting read overall.
