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June 22, 2005
Women Now and Then
Dear reader,
Did you know that 438 years ago, Maddalena’s story opened on a bright June 18, 1567? Much more recently, my daughter Katherine was also born on that day. A great day that was.
Happy birthday, Katushka moja. We both stay young, don’t we? It’s the world that keeps changing. Or does it?
In the Sunday New York Times, the tale of a Pakistani peasant woman, gang-raped for a crime she didn’t commit and “forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd,” caught my attention. Again. This time, Mr. Musharraf, the illustrious leader of her country, forbade her to travel to the United States. Later, the article reported, he changed his mind, suddenly wanting his country to appear progressive. I sat, read, and shook my head.
How about women in the Renaissance? By today’s standards, they were slaves to their husbands. Well, more like servile spouses. Appreciated mostly only when they gave birth to a male heir and kept their mouth closed―except for unusual women, mostly of noble birth like Queen Elisabeth I of England or Felice della Rovere Orsini, the daughter of a pope―they were to remain pious, humble, uneducated, obedient, dutiful, honoring God and their spouses in that order. The poor wenches without dowries went to the street and the daughters with only meager dowries became nuns. So long as they kept away from the male-dominated world, old widowed dowagers fared reasonably well. Too old to remarry and bear children and in command of the husband’s estate while keeping their intelligence hidden, they lead fairly decent lives. But all women had to remember their place in Renaissance society. Even the relatively independent and pampered courtesans kept their eyes demure and needlework going if it pleased their wealthy patrons’ egos.
So there we are, in our microcosm, that we conveniently forget―or try to, busy with our puny little lives―what happens on the other side, in countries where women walk two steps behind their husbands and cover their faces in public. Women of the western world think we are so much better off than our Renaissance sisters. Maybe we are. We marry if we want to, or don’t, and have children out of wedlock without people furling their brows. Well, that is if we choose to live in the mainstream community or if we don’t care. We even hold jobs so important that the notion sends our heads spinning so much that we don’t notice the little time left for our families.
These days, we speak of quality family time. Isn’t that right?
On the birthday of my daughter, who came six years after her brother, I was shy of thirty, married, a house owner, settled in a teaching job, having completed the first graduate degree only after my first child. Being an immigrant didn’t make life easy. But, things got done, quickly and efficiently. There was no time for “finding oneself.” Life didn’t owe one anything. Now, new mothers in their forties push baby strollers and I look in their faces sculpted by age, by sleepless nights and worries about their jobs, faces of women who just might have enjoyed more being stay-home mothers. Are they truly happy? Are they better off than their Renaissance sisters?
Dear reader, what do you think?
Posted by Eva Siroka at June 22, 2005 03:54 PM