Life For Women In The Tudor Era (Part two)

It is interesting how some upper class women were highly educated whilst others were not. Many of the subjects taught were reading, writing, music, dancing, needlework and languages such as Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian and french.

Girls from poor families were expected to start working and adding to the family income from around seven years old. Even wealthy girls were not allowed to be idle, and although they were allowed some time to play, they were encouraged to weave or read suitable books, or find some other suitable occupation.
Most women married and became mothers. Life was extremely hard for spinsters. Marriage was usually arranged, with the very wealthy girl being married off at the very young age of twelve. The majority were married in their mid-20s. For the poorest girl, she could choose whom she married, maybe it was love, maybe she wanted to better herself, or maybe it just suited both of them --- the bride and groom.

Naturally children followed but child-birth was very dangerous, with no sanitation, cleanliness or knowledge of medicine. A lot of women died because of infection, often because the midwives knew very little about cleanliness --- their hands were sometimes dirty when seeing the mother therefore spreading infection. Poor women tended to give birth about once every two years. Rich women gave birth about once a year. The poor woman breast-fed her own child, the rich woman gave her child to a wet nurse. The obvious explanation is there : breast-feeding is a natural contraceptive.

Make-up in the Tudor Era was terrifyingly different to our day! The poor woman was usually sunburnt from working in the fields all day, she didn't waste her time with such vanity! The rich woman, however, wanted to have pale skin, it showed she never worked outside and she would use egg whites or "white lead", reddening the lips and cheeks with cochineal (a dye made from crushed beetles). Of course, the white lead ruined the skin.

How different life was for women in the Tudor Era when compared to our Era today !