This thesis examines seventeenth century English wedding and funeral sermons to explore thepreached traits of the ideal Christian woman and the lived traits given to women deemed virtuousfollowing their deaths. The main research question asks how the ideal traits compare to the realtraits associated with virtuous women, and what these traits tell us about expectations, reality, andtheir role in female piety in early modern England. The three approaches used in this thesis comefrom Christine Peters, Jessica Murphy, and Penny Pritchard— all of whom look at the interactionsbetween gender, religion, the Reformation, and sermons as popular literature. These approachesaid in the understanding of why religion was being pushed as a female-specific activity that mustbe constantly performed, the examination of the various characteristics and how they fit into thegendered religious sphere, and what this meant for women seeking approval from their husbands,families, and communities. Contrary to the previous research, this thesis finds that while weddingsermons sought to instruct women to obey their husbands before anyone else, the funeral sermonswere noting that the real accomplishment was in obeying God before all else. This thesis also findsthat while the wedding sermons spoke exclusively to the husbands about finding the ideal wife, thefuneral sermons ignore the women’s roles in their families and solely praise their piety and goodworks. Overall, it is concluded that the idealized wedding sermons attempted to teach women toserve their husbands, when in reality, women were being praised for their devotion and service to God.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-530578 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Lebo, Casey |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Historiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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