Society in today’s world takes everything for granted. We do not thank anyone for what we have. It is just part of our daily life. All the legal rights we have are given. But we often forget about our history and the struggle people went through to get what we have today; Women as being seen as equals, having the right to vote and be in certain career fields that only men used to work in. Before democracy became a part of our societies, countries were ruled by kings and what the king said became law. Life was based on a hierarchy, and depending how much money or land you had determined how good of a person you were and who you were allowed to affiliate with. The higher you are on the hierarchy the closer you were watched by the community. Everything you did determined how people would see you. Especially during the 16th century when the protestant reformation and the peasant war dominated, peoples’ views changed which transformed laws and people themselves.
“The Buergermeister’s Daughter” is a book written by Steven Ozment about the life of a family that entered a path of public gossip and yearlong court hearings in the early 16th century in Hall, Germany. Anna Bueschler is the daughter of Hermann Bueschler, a powerful councilman and the city’s mayor. His family has invested in real estate and selling wine which made him the richest man in town and he owned the grandest house on the market square (Ozment, 8). Due to his success his family was viewed as a role model, someone to look up to. But often Anna did not act how she should have based on their family’s reputation. Witnesses thought Anna dressed immodesty and beyond what was proper. She liked fine jewelry and loved to call attention on her. People recalled a custom-made be...
... middle of paper ...
...faced during her time. When she took her father to court, there were regulations on Anna’s part. Because Anna was unmarried and without means were she remained dependent on her father, looking for support, legally, she was not allowed to take her father to court without prior court consent and for a child to take their parents to court was very rare and hard to get the consent. Also, according to the law Anna was an unprofessional single woman that did not allow her to proceed without an accompanying male counsel or representative who normally is a women’s father or nearest male relative (Ozment, 111). Through the changes that were happening, especially with the Protestant reformation, Anna faced many problems when she was fighting her father in court. Based on Anna’s action it did not seem like the agreed with the Protestants and their views on sex and marriage.
Steven Ozment examines the marriage between a sixteenth century German merchant and his wife. The publication illustrates the adversities of a long distance marriage, the Black Plague that passed through Germany, the passing of little Balthasar, their only child, as well as the trade of business that assists the binding of the two and their union together. Magdalena and Balthasar write letters back and forth to one another in an attempt to keep each other sane. The disposition of their marriage held a robust love for one another. Their letters were exchanged during the time of Balthasar's business travels. The numerous amount of diverse emotions, misfortunes, and affection that Magdalena and Balthasar exuded within their relationship embodied who they were as a couple.
Janet Lewis, the author of The Wife of Martin Guerre, illustrates what family dynamics were like in the sixteenth century, “…for the extend of his father’s lifetime Martin would legally remain a minor” whereas, women’s identity and importance were only known through their husbands. However, within this novel Bertrande de Rols, wife of Martin Guerre, is known as herself; this is to express that the novel was written according to her experience as the wife of Martin Guerre. Even though, it wasn’t acceptable for women to go forward with such accusations, Bertrande de Rols did the right thing pursuing Arnaud as an impostor because she knew he was not her husband despite what everyone else said. After all, she knew Martin best.
Gluckel's memoir enables a reader to gain an understanding of what a widowed Jewish woman would face in Christian dominated Germany both from a personal and public perspective throughout seventeenth and eighteenth century. Throughout her memoirs Gluckel describes the worries that a mother would have over her children, her relations with both her first and second husband while addressing the responsibilities she faced as a businesswoman. Gluckel arranged her life narrative in seven books. The first four books and the opening section of the fifth book have been written consecutively in the months or year of mourning after Haim's (her first husbands) death in 1689. The rest of Book 5 was written during the decade of the 1690's but given final form after her second marriage. The sixth book was written in 1702 or shortly afterward, during the initial shock of Hirsch Levy's (Gluckel's second husbands) bankruptcy in Metz, and the seventh and final book was composed in 1715, during her second widowhood, with a final paragraph from 1719 before her death. Gluckel has conveniently broken down her narratives in seven books, which help the reader clearly identify with individual aspects occurring in her life. In her memoirs Gluckel thoroughly encompasses a social, cultural and economical perspective about her life as a Jewish woman while contrasting it to Christian ways which dominated Germany during both 17th and 18th century.
Naivety as well as the longing to fit into society with a loving man and stable, well-to-do peasant family deceived an honorable woman. Bertrande de Rols’ young marriage had difficulties from the start. With the guidance from family, the Catholic Church and Basque customs, Bertrande attempted to follow the sixteenth-century expectations for women, but was misled by her own fear, loneliness and catastrophic past.
Throughout history, especially in the fifteenth century, it was extremely rare for a woman to choose her husband. The majority of marriages were planned by the head of the household, which was usually the father of the bride or groom. The purposes of these marriages were to gain power and social standings. This in turn also provided the chance for the heirs of the marriages to have possession of power, territory/land, and a set social standard for the family for all future heirs. This was more of a benefit for the men than the women, for the men could own territories and be the head of the household, women could not. Instead, a woman’s obligation was to fulfill their family’s jurisdiction in their future.
In today’s society we measure people by the way they appear to us. Within the first five seconds of meeting someone, we will come to a decision whether or not the person acts in the “proper” way society approves of. This misleads people into behaving and acting in ways they normally wouldn’t to fit into what society deems as the right way to behave. When someone decides to reject the “proper” way they become alienated from their peers/society. In almost every area of life be it work, school, or the community, people create an idea of a person based on how they appear to us. We neglect to see the person for who they really are. We are expected to behave accordingly to the box we are placed in whether it be based on our sexuality, sex, race or our cultural background, and when we refuse to accept this, we become rejected, cast off. This leads me to believe that the majority of social issues society faces, would be solved with the abolishment of tyranny: “Any harsh discipline or oppression.” (Collins English Dictionary - Complete & unabridged 10th edition)
In the early stages of Catherine's life the surfacing modern age was bringing with it social turmoil which spread throughout Europe (Giordani 3). During Catherine's lifetime, according to Mary Ann Sullivan in her essay “St. Catherine of Siena,” the center of Catholic rule fluctuated between Rome and Avignon and contributed to a schism between popes in Italy and France (1). Catherine was born 23rd in a line of 25 children and, according to Sullivan “even at a young age, [she] sensed the troubled society around her and wanted to help” (1). While her parents were not exceptionally religious, St. Catherine's biographer Blessed Raymond of Capua discusses Catherine's early zeal for Catholic practices: “When she was about five she learned the Hail Mary, and repeated it over and over again as often as she could…she was inspired by heaven to address the Blessed Virgin in this way whenever she went up and down stairs, stopping to kneel on each step as she did so” (24). Her devotion to the Virgin Mary would become especially important in a vision she had around this time while walking with her brother to visit one of her sisters.
Q: Analyse the character of Effi Briest in Fontane’s novel and critically comment on her fate as part of Fontane’s concerns regarding the cultural legitimacy of the Junker class to lead German society in the final years of the 19th century, but also to what extent Effi is to blame for her own misfortunes.
Society can be very diminishing and very hurtful. I say hurtful by the way many people criticize one another by the way we walk, talk, and act with others or even alone. As we grow older we fall into different categories such as community, religion, and the list goes on. In between all that there is certain norms and values to follow. There are certain types of norms and values we have to follow in our community to not get harassed. First, before I committed a norm violation and making an observation I had to be able to understand what values, norms, folkways, sanctions, and mores were. “Values are ideas of what is desirable in life. Values underlie our preferences, guide our choices, and indicate what we hold worthwhile in life” (Henslin,
Perhaps one of the most haunting and compelling parts of Sanders-Brahms’ film Germany Pale Mother (1979) is the nearly twenty minute long telling of The Robber Bridegroom. The structual purpose of the sequence is a bridge between the marriage of Lene and Hans, who battles at the war’s front, and the decline of the marriage during the post-war period. Symbolically the fairy tale, called the “mad monstrosity in the middle of the film,” by Sanders Brahms (Kaes, 149), offers a diagetic forum for with which to deal with the crimes of Nazi Germany, as well a internally fictional parallel of Lene’s marriage.
Society’s perception of what is considered important and worth changing for is flawed because the only way for young people to make a change is to do something drastic. It is part of human nature to feel like being an individual is important, but most of humanity decides to go with the flow and easily slip into society 's cracks. Humanity needs more individuals like Romeo and Juliet that are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in and dismiss society.
The persuasive attempts in both literary works produce different results. The effectiveness of the mother’s guidance to her daughter is questioned since the girl cannot recognize the essence of her mother’s lesson. Despite that, the mother’s beneficial instruction serves as a standard for the daughter to reflect her future behaviors in order to live up to the community’s expectations. On the other hand, Anne’s value of candid expression and lasting relationship dissuades her from obliging to her family’s meaningless duty to place her love and interest above to experience fulfillment in life.
Mrs. Linde shows her loyalty to her family when she did not think that she “had the right” to refuse her husband’s marriage proposal. After taking into consideration her sick mother, her brothers, and Krogstad having money. She married for the welfare of her family.
Our class has just a finished a very exciting novel called Anna of Byzantium. One character in the novel is Anna Dalassena who was a passionate stateswoman. She was very cunning, manipulative and discriminative woman.She was the grandmother of Anna Comnena who is the main character of the story. Anna Dalassena played a major role on how the main character’s life turned out to be. She taught the main character that life was hard and very cruel. In addition, she shared many stories about her young life and how she experienced bloody battles alongside her son Alexius Comnenus. Anna Dalassena was very mean and discriminative to her daughter-in-law, Irene Ducas, as she came from a family that Anna disliked. When Anna Comnena wanted to learn statecraft from another significant person, Anna Dalassena was furious and commanded her to
The sacred act of marriage is questioned in Jude the Obscure (Saldivar 192). Marriage is seen as an institution open to criticism that is violated by need, chance, and the choices made by the characters (Hardwick 68). For Sue, violations in wholeness and freedom are agoni...