The dawn of the sixteenth century was the dawn of a new era, social, religious, and commercial. It was the beginning of a gradual transformation which with every century, with every generation, takes some new form, and is sometimes called progress, sometimes revolution, but which moves on with the same relentless persistence as the laws that govern the earth.
It was a rough world in which women found themselves at liberty to come and go, to taste new pleasures, enjoy fresh luxuries, hear new opinions, and think new thoughts. But, at least, it was a world of action, of striving, of pushing forward. Despotic as was the throne, oppressive as were the new landowning class, a freer spirit prevailed. Social changes work gradually, and their influence is not at once perceived; but the germ of modern England was working in those days of religious stress, intellectual activity, and commercial enterprise.
The visits of foreigners to England in the sixteenth century enable us to see ourselves as others saw us. The position of women and the relations of the sexes always excited comment from strangers.
“Wives,” writes a Dutchman, “are not kept so strictly as they are in Spain or elsewhere. Nor are they shut up, but they have the free management of the house or housekeeping, after the fashion of those of the Netherlands and others their neighbours. They go to market to buy what they like best to eat. They are well dressed, fond of taking it easy, and commonly leave the care of household matters and drudgery to their servants. They sit before their doors, decked out in fine clothes, in order to see and be seen by the passers-by. In all banquets and feasts they are shown the greatest honour. They are placed at the upper end of the table, where they are first served; at the lower end they help the men. All the rest of their time they employ in walking and riding, in playing at cards or otherwise, in visiting their friends and keeping company, conversing with their equals (whom they term gossips) and their neighbours, and making merry with them at child-births, christenings, churchings, and funerals; and all this with the permission and knowledge of their husbands, as such is the custom. Although the husbands often recommend to them the pains, industry, and care of the German or Dutch women, who do what the men ought to do both in the house and the shops, for which services in England men are employed, nevertheless the women usually persist in retaining their customs. This is why England is called the paradise of married women. The girls who are not yet married are kept much more rigorously and strictly than in the Low Countries.”