Was it Better to Be a Widow Than a Wife in Medieval Europe?

In the Medieval times, there were relatively few choices for women. There were no careers as such. There was life devoted to the church as a nun, the covert and sinful choice as a prostitute, or the path that was clearly expected of every woman, wife and mother. A woman would be expected to marry to relieve the burden her parents carried, and then would be expected to contribute to the well being of her husband and his family, as well as caring for her own. She was moved from the care of 'one' male to another. As when she was a young child, the married woman was considered inept and inferior to man, and unable to understand anything except the most trivial of concerns. If however, a woman were widowed, the loss of her husband seemingly changed her in the eyes of men. She was able to decide her own fate, and did not have to return to the care of her father. She made her own choices and answered to no one. She was no different to the married woman or a young girl in terms of womanhood, yet the removal of youth or matrimony propelled her into a realm of self-reliance. Widowhood was by far a better outcome for a woman than being the inferior and subservient partner in a medieval marriage.

The Church transformed the idea of marriage to that of a simple secular arrangement to a sacramental act in the confines of the ecclesiastical setting. Marriage prior to the church decree was that of a potpourri of possibilities; marriage by capture, marriage by purchase of marriage by the agreement of the families. The intended bride was treated as a commodity and little emphasis was placed upon her wishes or her happiness. When the church added marriage as an official sacrament in 1215, it deemed marriage would only be considered and made legitimate when it was accepted as an act of mutual consent. The age of consent was set at seven years old, this meaning that a marriage contract could be made and then confirmed at the coming of age, which by canon law was 12 for a girl and a boy at 14, which was felt to be an age when a boy was more mature. The age was lower for the female as it was accepted that a girl needed to be controlled at a younger age.

The consent to marry did not necessarily have to come from the intended bride, but still could come from her parents or whoever held legal power over her. Henry of Essex was said to have betrothed his three-year-old daughter Agnes to a man in his 40s. This idea of mutual consent was, while offering protection from marriages of purchase or capture did not have the ability to preclude a marriage of convenience or monetary gain for the parents. A girl was still not much better off than she had been prior to the Church's decree, and her happiness was sill not a viable factor in a contract of marriage.

The contract of marriage appeared to be a seemingly more prevalent issue for the aristocratic members of society as opposed to those considered on the lower end of the social spectrum. The lower classes, many of who had little or no property; and most of whom were unable to read or write, had no reason to bother with an official union, and instead entered into a common law marriage, an arrangement of simply living together. Even after the edict of the church, this would seem to still have been the norm among the lower classes. Females for who the parents were unable to provide a dowry for were often forced to enter the convent or into a life of servitude, any means which took the burden of responsibilities off the parent. Women were not useful to their parents if they were unable to marry here off, whether because of money or lack of interest, and they used whatever means they could to see their problems solved in regards to female offspring.

Ladies of the upper classes showed little difference in terms of marriage opportunities than women in the lower social strata. In reality, the marriage of aristocratic women was more of opportunity than emotion. The marriages were arranged, often to gain important political or royal connections, or to gain substantial amounts of property. The women were little more than pawns, and even though they were destined to live lives of opulence and high status, they were lives of little happiness and fulfilment. Ladies of wealth, while it is true had positions of influence in running a household, had little contact with the outside world, as did lower class women, who would have been out and about in the community to ensure the running of her household and the family. The moneyed woman would have had servants to care for the home and nannies for the children, thus giving her little interaction with those around her.

The Church is held responsible by some historians for putting the stature of women in such a menial position. They Church gave credence to the notion of women being inferior from Creation. This coupled with the fact that the first of women, Eve, was a temptress who led Adam to a sinful state, and thus sealed the fate of all women who came after her, that they were the inferior, always to be placed below man. The Church supported the right of a husband to beat his wife into subservience as long as he did not do much damage. However, more often than not a man could beat his wife as violently as he wished. Medieval laws stated the husband could "slash her (the wife's) body form head to foot and 'warm his feet in her blood'." He would not be prosecuted by a court of law if he could nurse her back to health.

Women carried significant roles in marriage, but since they were mentally inept, the only real contributions they were capable of making were jobs of menial labour and household duties such as cooking, cleaning and childcare. In rural households, women would also have been in charge of the kitchen garden, gathering wood, sewing and textile production, and brewing beer. They also maybe expected to venture out into the community to seek work such as haymaking or milking livestock. Women from wealthier households had made servants and other people to help them with the chore and the care of the children. However, the aristocratic woman would have her hands full managing the servants, planning parties and events, and seeing to her husbands comfort, but this can hardly be compared to the hardship that a woman of lesser classes faced routinely. The accepted and practiced ideology was to give the women, no matter what their position in the social strata, works that was light of burden and easy of minds, since this was all they were deemed able to do, and not to challenge the strength of their minds or their bodies. Women primarily were there to do serve their husbands and to bear him strong children; this was their purpose in life. In the eyes of the church, there was no other reason for their existence, beyond these very points.

Inevitably, some women outlived their husbands entered a new phase of their life: widowhood. Widowhood offered a somewhat better status in life than what had been afforded to her as a wife. She was given control over her life, and the ability to determine how her money was spent. She was relieved of her sins in the church and often given special consideration in the community. A widow did not have to acquiesce any longer to a man; she did not have to return to the rule of her father or other male relatives. She was able to take full control of her dower and at least half of her husband's property, if not all of it.

The laws regarding how much a widow was entitled to be subject to various stipulations in different area, but the most general rules were the same throughout Europe. The Magna Carta of 1225 guaranteed that a wife, upon the expiration of her husband, was entitled to be provided for, and this right placed her before all to whom her husband may have been indebted. She was also free to manage the affairs and the property of her underage sons and daughters. A widow would have to give up her property if she chose to remarry, and when she died it would revert to her children, or back to the family of her husband is she were childless.

The Church gave conflicting views on the role and status of a widow over the course of the medieval period. Up until the 4^th century, the church gave widows protection; indeed some widows even joined monasteries as nuns or lay sisters. The Church viewed widows as chiefly being of a disadvantaged nature, and thus needing of the stewardship of the clergy. This was viewed as the 'biblical duty of the Church and for the simple fact that the woman was defenceless, because her guardian and provider had died. The widow had at first been encouraged to remain single, to be chaste, as this was a way for her to get to heaven. She had completed her duty and given her husband children, cared for her spouse and family and thus had atoned for the sins of her womanhood. Better to remain celibate and free from the lure of the flesh and return to the chaste state of her girlhood. They were thought to be in a better position to reach the paradise that awaited them in the afterlife if they remained virtuous and a single woman. Remarriage in this time was considered to be an act of fornication, one of the worst sins a woman could commit.

The Church reversed this attitude in the latter part of the medieval period. If a widow wished to remarry, it was no longer viewed as an act of sin. Rather, the Church solemnized the vows of the remarriage. Remarriage was, although accepted by the church, were not often accepted, in particular by the younger men of the community. A particular custom aw noted in which a sort of protest would take place at the home of the intended, in which the villagers would loudly chant and bash cymbals to lament their lack of a spouse, while the widow had already been bound in matrimony and was now taken another eligible person away from the ranks of the unwed. A widow was often expected to remarry, especially if she was a younger woman, and this often could result in the widow being married three or four times in her life.

The class position in which the widow was ensconced also factored upon her decision to remarry. A peasant widow may be forced to marry for financial concerns, as she may have been left destitute, with no property or dowry to speak of, and a young family left to care for. It is difficult to contemplate that a woman, if young of age, would not consider remarriage, even is she had no financial concerns. The need for companionship, the possibility of extending her family, and the need for intimate contact would have been a seemingly high probability. A woman who was widowed in later life may have been content to simply enjoy her 'freedom' and her family; safe in the knowledge she would be cared for by her children.

The woman of nobility faced a somewhat dilemma than that of the peasant. She might be forced to remarry to maintain her estates, or she may have had to do so to preserve her children's inheritances. She sometimes had to remarry to retain her position in that of the noble society. There is also the possibility that she may be pressured to remarry at the whim of the King or court, or to retain her dower. The higher her social rank, or the more valuable her dower and estates were, seemed to determine how much pressure might be exerted against her. The noble woman seemed to face a harder time in trying to gain or use her freedom as a single person, and undoubtedly, this pressure caused her great sorrow and stress. Both the noble and the peasant faced uncertainly and doubt, but the peasant seemed more often than not to have the greater possibility to exercise her newfound status as she saw fit.

Was it better to be a widow than a wife in medieval Europe? There are arguments in favour of both points. A wife is guaranteed the protection of her husband, but not necessarily from him. The wife of the peasant man is considered property of her husband, there to do his bidding and rear the children, she is given no rights and her opinions are of no consequence. She cannot make decisions, decide on monetary issues and has no advantage in society itself. However, she is able to interact with other women around her in the course of her duties and she is able to raise her children as she sees fit. The same issues noble wife is relatively on the same field as the peasant, sans the monetary and advantage in society issues. She has to run her household, control the servants and make sure her husband is attended to. She however, has no real contact with others on a daily basis, as the servants would attend to the shopping and other mundane chores. The noble would also have little contact with her children, as they were primarily cared for by the nanny.

When the woman is widowed, she has great freedom in exercising her wishes and does not face pressure to remarry if her financial situation is adequate for her needs. She may choose to remain celibate, she can enter a nunnery or she can remarry as her wants dictate. She is given higher status in the community, and more respect. She is free to live her life as she sees fit, and does not have to let a man, such as her father tell her what to do. Women of nobility may be pressured to remarry, but both women could be assured that their place in society was solid and that they were to be given their eternal due once they entered heaven. The position of wife gave a woman the ability to raise a family and be protected, but the position of widow offered her freedom and the ability to chart her own course in life, rather than to have it dictated to her by the whims of men.