The Weaker Vessel

Read this in the 1980s. Excellent history of women in the seventeenth-century England, in fact, I've recommended this to many. It is long and detailed, but some simply don't realize how difficult it was for women to live a chattel and how some treatment has survived as recently as 1985. IMHO this should be read and explained to all females.

5654. The Weaker Vessel, by Antonia Fraser (read 19 Oct 2019) This is the ninth book by Fraser I have read and is, I think, the least interesting and one I slogged through without often finding it interesting. It is essentially a history of women in the 17th century in Britain, She does a good job of showing how few rights women had in that benighted time, but the book jumps around a lot and tells of specific women--most of whom are unknown except maybe to a specialist in 17th English history. And the legal position of English women in the 17th century improved little if at all during the century. This non-improvement cannot be blamed on the women but is due to the failure of men to see how unfair and stupid it was to have women have so show more few rights and to be so dominated by the male. There are things of interest in the book but also much dry material show less

A dear book club friend gave me this book because she thought I would like it - and she was right.  A well-researched documentation of the lives of women in 17th-century England, from the end of the reign of Elizabeth I in 1603 to the beginning of the reign of Anne in 1702 - in other words, most of the tumultuous Stuart period.  Antonia Fraser used many contemporary sources - letters, diaries, etc. - to document the lives of - as it says on the cover - "heiresses and dairymaids, holy women and prostitutes, criminals and educators, widows and witches, midwives and mothers, heroines, courtesans, prophetesses, businesswomen, ladies of the court, and...the actress."  She includes a helpful chronology at the beginning of the book, 470 show more pages of very-readable text, 24 pages of black-and-illustrations (mostly portraits of some of the book's subjects), 30 pages of end notes, 18 pages of the references cited, and a 26-page index. show less

Interesting book about woman's place in 17th century England.

"Working from the first-hand testimony of letters, journals, memoirs, and other contemporary accounts, the author weaves her own delicate yet keen measure of the wisdom of the day -- that woman was morally, spiritually, and intellectually 'the weaker vessel' -- with the startling actuality: women of every class, circumstance, and sensibility often defying the narrowness of society's expectations of them in the most unexpected ways." - from book jacket

not very interesting. stories about women I have never heard of. and so long.

" A fresh angle of vision has given her a fresh view of the private life of the 17th Century, and she conveys it with skill." Spectator