This classic two-volume history is an exciting and revolutionary look at women's history, from prehistoric times
to the present. Its unique organization focuses on the developments, achievements, and changes in women's roles
in society rather than placing women in historical chronology. A History of Their Own restores women to
the historical record, brings their history into focus, and provides models of female action and heroism. This
revised edition incorporates a new introduction and epilogue and a thoroughly updated bibliography, sorted by subject.
Volume One covers women's history from the prehistoric period to the seventeenth century and includes topics such
as the treatment of and attitudes about women during mankind's earliest recorded history; the alternating forces
of empowerment and subordination imposed on women by ancient religions and the emergence of Christianity; peasant
women's daily experiences of childbirth, family life, and field labor in feudal Europe; women's religious lives
during the Renaissance; and the contrast between the lives of noblewomen & the lives of townswomen in early
modern Europe.
Volume Two covers the fifteenth century to the present. Topics include the roles of female monarchs and women of
the court; the application of the new tools of the Scientific Revolution to 'prove' traditional views of women;
parlor life of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and wealthy women's dabblings in the arts and social services;
the impact of city-living and the Industrial Revolution on women's roles and family life; and the emergence, evolution,
and impact of the modern feminist movement.
Lively and engaging, this two-volume history takes the reader on a fascinating journey of women's history and the
changing roles they have played.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Table of Contents
I. Traditions Inherited: Attitudes About Women From the Centuries Before 800 A.D.
1. Buried Traditions: The Question of Origins
2. Inherited Traditions: The Principal Influences
3. Traditions Subordinating Women
4. Traditions Empowering Women
5. The Effects of Christianity
II. Women of the Fields: Sustaining the Generations
1. The Constants of the Peasant Women's World: The Ninth to the Twentieth Centuries
2. Sustaining the Generations
3. The Extraordinary
4. What Remains of the Peasant Woman's World
III. Women of the Churches: The Power of the Faithful
1. The Patterns of Power and Limitation: The Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries:
2. Authority Within the Institutional Church
3. Authority Outside the Institutional Church
4. Authority Given and Taken Away: The Protestant and Catholic Reformations
5. Traditional Images Redrawn
6. The Legacy of the Protestant Reformation
IV. Women of the Castles and Manors: Custodians of Land and Lineage
1. From Warrior's Life to Noblewomen: The Ninth to the Seventeenth Centuries
2. Constants of the Noblewoman's Life
3. Power and Vulnerability
4. The New Flowering of Ancient Traditions
V. Women of the Walled Towns: Providers and Partners
1. The Townswoman's Daily Life: The Twelfth to the Seventeenth Centuries
2. Dangers and Remedies
3. The World of Commercial Capitalism: The Thirteenth to Seventeenth Centuries
4. The Invisible and Visible Bonds of Misogyny
