The Weaker Vessel
Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-Century England
What it was actually like to be a woman in seventeenth-century England, drawn from letters, diaries and court records.
Fraser assembles the lives of seventeenth-century Englishwomen from letters, diaries, court records and pamphlets: heiresses and midwives, prophetesses and prostitutes, women who held castles under siege. The title comes from the era’s own phrase for them, and the book won the Wolfson History Prize in 1984.
Recommended by 1 Person
Helen Castor
All the pervasiveness of the social, cultural and historical assumptions about what it means to be male or female come into play in this book. Even though it’s a book about the 17th century and I work in previous centuries, I still find it very thought provoking about the personal experience and the social assumptions that have an effect when you’re confronted by the idea of a woman who rules.
Interview · August 2011
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