MODERNIZATION AND THE IMPACT

ON GENDER AND FAMILY

Elisabeth Pluskota
HIST 171.01
Midterm Essay
October 10, 2005
 “I became a nun, because although I recognized it as having many ramifications…
foreign to my temperament, still, given my completely negative feelings about marriage, it was
the least disproportionate and most fitting thing I could do.”
- Juana Ines de la Cruz, reply to Sor Filotea de la Cruz, 16911

The time period between the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is often looked at

as the definitive break between the pre- and post-modern worlds. China had just concluded an

era of diplomatic sea faring adventures, Europeans were in the beginnings of world exploration

with the help of new technology borrowed from the Chinese, and the countries sponsoring the

voyages were reaping the benefits in the way of new colonies, resources, commodities, and labor.

New political systems were forming because of constant past and present warfare and

competition for land. All in all, a new world economic and political order was on the rise with

European nation-states at the helm. Focusing merely on the large scale economic and political

aspects, however, leaves out a very important part of the world scene pre- and post-1500. With

all the important advances and exploration that were taking place in the world, what were the

impacts on gender roles and the family?2

Consider poet Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s above remark to her fellow sister, Sor Filotea

de la Cruz, in which she stated that the only escape for her from marriage and her role as a

woman in the seventeenth century was to enter a convent. Though unique as a person because of

her gift for poetry and art and her outspokenness, her professional choices were the same

whether the year was 1500 or 1700. Upon examining primary and secondary sources and texts

from 1500 to 1800, it appears that the changes that were revolutionizing the political and

economic systems around the globe were having minimal positive and some substantial negative

effects on gender roles and the family. Societies that were patriarchal remained patriarchal,

1
Familiar Quotations: John Bartlett, 16th ed., s.v. Juana Ines de la Cruz.
2
Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative (Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2002), 67-68, 195; Theodore F. Cook, “Zheng He and Chinese Expansion,” in Worlds of History: A
Comparative Reader, ed. Kevin Reilly (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 5.

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while societies that afforded women autonomy either remained constant or became more

restrictive as new political and religious systems took hold.3

Despite the revolutionary economic and political changes that were taking place in

Europe in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, China and Chinese families remained

patriarchal in nature, with women in a clearly subservient role. As illustrated in both the manual

“Family Instructions for the Miu Lineage” and the article “How Dong Xiaowan Became My

Concubine,” women were clearly less important than their male counterparts in seventeenth

century China. From the fourteenth through the eighteenth centuries, it was common for Chinese

families to organize themselves along family lines, and in particular the male lineage. These

organizations would come up with rules for the family to live by in order to guarantee success

and well-being for the future generations. The parents were expected to watch over and order the

children, as it was important that all family members be obedient. The maintenance of the

household was left to the women, and it was their responsibility to make sure that the home

incurred minimal waste and excessive expenditures were guarded against, lest it lead the family

to ruin. A wife, although above the children, was below the other male family members

including the husband, grandfather, uncles and brothers. Wives’ opinions were not to be listened

to, as they caused disruption in the family. Family stability was valued above all else.4

Another way in which women were subservient to men in this patriarchal society was that

men were allowed to have concubines. Concubines were rare in Chinese society and mainly

limited to the elite class, as pointed out by Reilly, but it was still a privilege only afforded to men

and thus placed women in a lesser position. In his memoir, Xiang states that his wife consented

to his decision to take Dong Xiaowan as a concubine and even gave money to the girl’s father
3
Robert B. Marks, The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative (Lanham, MD: Rowman
& Littlefield, 2002), 67-68; John E. Wills Jr., “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,” in Worlds of History: A Comparative
Reader, ed. Kevin Reilly (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 154.
4
“Family Instructions for the Miu Lineage,” in Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, ed. Kevin Reilly (Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 138-142.

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money toward her care. As a women and wife in seventeenth century China, however, his wife

was expected to honor the family name by showing no displeasure; her main priority in life was

to keep a calm and well running household. If she had decided to loudly object to her husband’s

desire to take a concubine or refused to accept the concubine, the wife’s actions would have

reflected badly on the family and she would have overstepped her boundaries as a woman.

Women’s roles in China remained very constant both before and after the “new age” of world

globalization and modernization that occurred during the sixteenth century. They had no

economic or sexual autonomy. The Chinese had practiced Buddhism and Confucianism, both

male dominated religions and philosophies for centuries, and since there was no religion change

there was also no change within the Chinese family structure or to the men’s and women’s

respective gender roles.5

Patriarchal societies were not just limited to the Chinese. Wills describes the actions of

the artist and poet Juana Ines de la Cruz in his article by the same name. As a child, Juana had a

“thirst for solitude and reading.” Faced with a deep intellectual curiosity and no place to satisfy

it, Juana eventually pledged her vows and became a nun. Higher education for women was not

prominent or looked upon well in seventeenth century colonial Mexico. Juana became a nun for

the freedom it afforded her, including private living quarters, access to books, time and solitude

to read and write, and the ability to hold gatherings to debate and talk. Her extensive and varied

writings as well as her independent spirit, which were quite unusual traits for a woman of

colonial seventeenth century Mexico to show--to say nothing of a nun--got her into trouble. Sor

Juana was forced to renounce her prior beliefs and writings and resume a life more fitting for a

sister, which meant prayer, solitude, and nursing her sick sisters to health and then subsequently

5
“Family Instructions for the Miu Lineage,” 138-142; Mao Xiang, “How Dong Xiaowan Became My Concubine,” in
Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, ed. Kevin Reilly (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 143, 145.

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dying from the illness.6

Willis believes that religion afforded Sor Juana the ability to do what she loved, which

was write and theorize. The religion which gave her that opportunity, however, was a

contributing factor to her not being able to obtain an education in the first place. Also, it was the

Catholic church which forced her to give up her writing and art to resume a life more fitting for a

nun and a woman. Spain and its colony in Mexico were patriarchal societies by nature and

therefore frowned on women speaking out and leaving the home realm for one of scholarly

learning and debate. Sor Juana had no way of making a living that would afford her the luxury

of a life filled with study and writing. She became a nun because she had no other economic

alternative for a life except for marriage; it was not from a desire to devote her life to God. 7

Some societies that were neither patriarchal nor matriarchal prior to 1500 remained the

same after the dawn of the modern world. When Captain John Smith was captured by the

Powhatan Indian tribe, he concentrated his sights on the male realms of war, religion and

politics. The Powhatan women were viewed by the English explorers and colonists in much the

same way as European women were at the time—they were more or less invisible, unless the

men took sexual liberties from them. The Powhatan Indian women that Helen Rountree

recreates in her article, “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw,”

were both economically independent and fairly sexually autonomous from men, and in turn were

able to stray from the traditional “home” realm.8

Women defined the work that they performed in groups and reaped the reward of power

within their family for their efforts. For example, the Powhatan women, not the men, owned and

sold the corn they sowed—it was not communal property. The women were as strong and skilled
6
John E. Wills Jr., “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,” in Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, ed. Kevin Reilly
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 157; Wills, “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,” 160.
7
Wills, “Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,” 157.
8
Helen C. Rountree, “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw,” Ethnohistory, Vol.
45, No. 1 (Winter 1998), 1-2.

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as the men were. Powhatan men and women were not equal, but were economic partners who

lived in two different but overlapping worlds. In part due to this economic freedom, the

Powhatan women were also as sexually free as the men, having the choice to take on

extramarital partners if they felt the need—but only with their husband’s permission. Their

economic freedom, as well as the lack of any male centered formal religion, enabled Powhatan

women to live out from under the shadow of the men. There was no outside, all powerful God

telling Powhatan men that they were superior to women and that women were weak and needed

to be taken care of.9

A few societies did exist in which women had a good deal of economic independence

and sexual autonomy. Both before and after the year 1500, women of many cultures in Southeast

Asia were not only valued as women and wives, but also for their distinctively womanly

qualities, most importantly reproduction. In Reid’s study, “Commerce and Gender in Southeast

Asia,” he states that women were not equal to men, but they also did not directly compete, much

like the Powhatan Indians. A future wife’s family was actually given a “bride-price” for the

daughter, in lieu of the traditional dowry that was given to a future husband’s family, and the new

couple went to live with the bride’s family, not the groom as was the norm in other Asian

cultures. Women in certain Southeast Asian cultures were also active participants in courtship

and sexual activities; some men went so far to curry the favor of the women as to have beads and

spurs implanted in their penises explicitly for the women’s pleasure.10

Women in Southeast Asian cultures have also traditionally been great traders and

businesswomen, and were unusually influential and independent compared to other parts of the

world. Both men and women had their separate yet equally respected and valued realms in the

9
Rountree, “Powhatan Indian Women: The People Captain John Smith Barely Saw,” 4, 10-11, 20.
10
Anthony Reid, “Commerce and Gender in Southeast Asia,” in Worlds of History: A Comparative Reader, ed.
Kevin Reilly (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 149-151.

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pre- and post-modern world, and marketing was a distinctly female role that women excelled at.

Mother’s taught their daughters the craft from an early age. Visiting Chinese and Europeans

were often surprised that they were dealing with women in matters of trade, which were

traditionally male occupations at home. As Christianity, Islam and Confucianism spread through

Southeast Asia during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though, women found

their roles becoming more and more restricted. These male-centered religions undermined the

traditional economic and sexual autonomy of women in Southeast Asia. The religions took away

the women’s traditional role as a valuable partner and gave the female gender the primary role of

being loyal and dependent wives. Women’s roles in Southeast Asia also diminished because of

new European political influences that gave men a greater role, and thus more power, in

statecraft and religious practices.11

Most scholars agree that the modern world was born during the time period between the

late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, with Christopher Columbus’s ill-planned but

eventually successful exploration as the definitive event. When looked at from a political or

economic perspective, there can be no argument that the world, and in particular the Western

world, was going through tremendous economic, political and religious changes. The effects on

gender and family, though, are not as conclusive. After examining primary and secondary

sources and texts from the years 1500 to 1800, it is evident that the changes that were

revolutionizing the political and economic systems around the globe were having minimal

positive results on male and female gender roles, as well as on the family. Societies that were

patriarchal prior to 1500 remained firmly patriarchal, while societies that afforded women some

autonomy either remained fairly constant or became more restrictive as new political and

religious, and therefore economic, systems took hold. Without any kind of economic freedom

11
Reid, “Commerce and Gender in Southeast Asia,” 149-151.

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and taking into consideration the new constraints that patriarchal religions placed on them,

women lost both their sexual and economic autonomies in one fell swoop.12

12
Marks, The Origins of the Modern World, 67-68.