"The Youth Of Early Modern Women

Through fifteen essays that work from a rich array of primary sources this collection makes the novel claim that early modern European women like men had a youth. European culture recognised that between childhood and full adulthood early modern women experienced distinctive physiological social and psychological transformations. Drawing on two mutually shaped layers of inquiry - cultural constructions of youth and lived experiences - these essays exploit a wide variety of sources including literary and autobiographical works conduct literature judicial and asylum records drawings and material culture. The geographical and temporal ranges traverse England Ireland Italy France the Netherlands Switzerland Spain and Mexico from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. This volume brings fresh attention to representations of female youth their own life writings young women’s training for adulthood courtship and the emergent sexual lives of young unmarried women. |The Youth of Early Modern Women