Periods of European History that Demonstrated Changing Attitudes Towards the Education of Women :: European Europe History

Periods of European History that Demonstrated Changing Attitudes Towards the Education of Women Throughout the other(a) portion of modern European history, women werenever encouraged to undertake any significant education. Though the problemlessened over time, it was still a strong societal force. There were terzettomajor time periods when substantial changes took place in attitudes towardswomens education -- the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Seventeenthand the early Eighteenth centuries. The earliest time period, the Renaissance, may have actually been the to the highest degree liberal time period for womens education. The church was the onlyforce at this time that discouraged education. In Erasmuss book TheAbbot and the Learned Lady, The churchs assign on this issue says thateducation does not protect the chastity that was necessary for women. Therewere still, however, a certainty that women could and should be educated. For example, in Castigliones book The C ourtier, it is stated that women atomic number 18 capable of everything that men are. Also, Roger Ascham has describedhis female student(the future Queen Elizabeth I) as equally bright as anyother male student of his. Furthermore, in a letter by the poet LouiseLabe, she states a need for women to raise their head above theirspindles and take up studying. The next age, the Reformation and the catholic Reformation, saw adramatic and conservative change toward the attitudes of education forwomen. Martin Luther, a leader of the Reformation, was quoted as sayingthat God made men with wide-eyed shoulders to do all the intelligent, and womenwith broad hips to do the sitting and housework. Agreeing with MartinLuther, was Emond Auger, a French Jesuit, who said there is no need forwomen to take time out from their work and read the Old and youthful Testamentand in any case that Women must be silent in church. The third age of early modern European history is the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in which men at large were still stronglyagainst the education of women, but they had reached a compromise to someextent. They allowed women to be educated on a minor level, as Mme. deMaintenon(wife of Louis XIV) says Educate your middle-class girls in themiddle-class way, but dont embellish their minds, but a women could nevergo beyond that. It seemed also that some men had conflicting view pointson this issue. In Molieres play The Learned Ladies, educated women are