Para1Across many ages, including in the early modern period, written or printed information for women has made many societies uneasy. Often, literacy and reading materials for women have been heavily controlled, and women denied education. During the Elizabethan era (1558–1603), girls were less likely than boys to be formally educated, and women could read and write in lower numbers than men. However, an estimated 25% of urban women in the period could both read and write at least their initials, compared to about 40% of urban men. So, the audience of literate women was less substantial, but it was still large enough that books and pamphlets for women were published in increasing numbers in the period. Books about cooking, household management and medicine, and religious instruction were commonly read by early modern women.

Para2Measuring literacy in the early modern period is not simple, as there are no formal records for the dame schools or petty schools that operated in towns and villages, many of them run by women who taught basic literacy and numeracy out of their homes. Likewise, the definition of literacy itself is in question, with ongoing debates about if reading alone counts as literacy, or if people must both read and write to be counted as literate. Writing was taught as a separate skill from reading in the early modern period, which further complicates the investigation into who could read, as there are few historical records from or about those who could only read. Margaret W. Ferguson and Mihoko Suzuki point out that many definitions of literacy are tightly linked to theories of history that implicitly or explicitly privilege one term in a binary opposition over another: literate vs. oral, Renaissance vs. medieval, modern vs. primitive, cultured vs. barbaric, male vs. female (1). It can be difficult to make a concrete definition when the foundations of a field of study are biased. In recent studies, scholars have increasingly relied on personal documents like diaries, journals, and letters for qualitative evidence of female literacy when quantitative data is unavailable.

Para3Many books were published in the early modern period that detailed and taught ideal behavior for women, and most were written by men. Many of these books promoted the triad of virtues for women of the era: chastity, silence, and obedience.

Para4Many books for women worked to teach these virtues. Conduct books of the period such as Juan Luis Vives Instruction of a Christian Woman (1529), note the belief that chastity is the principal virtue of a woman, and counterpoiseth with all the rest: if she have that, no man will look for any other, and if she lack that no man will regard other. Other books about female behavior were written by men, often Puritan clergymen, such as Robert Dod and John Cleaver’s 1598 A Godly Form of Household Government or William Gouge’s 1622 Of Domesticall Duties. These conduct books may have been read by or to women of the period to encourage ideal behaviors. The first conduct book written specifically for women as the audience was Richard Brathwaite’s The English Gentlewoman, first published in 1631.

Para5One popular model text for women from this period is Gervase Markham’s The English Housewife, featuring English cookery and home remedies for a variety of illnesses. From homemade recipes for pies to household treatments for common illnesses, this text consists of useful information that women could use in their homes. In the years between its publication in 1615 and its final edition in 1683, The English Housewife went through nine editions and at least two other reprints.

Para6In this handbook, Markham reveals the pretty and curious secrets of preparing everything from simple foods to such elaborate meals as a humble feast—an undertaking that implies no less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can stand on one table. He advises the housewife on brewing beer, caring for wine, and growing flax and hemp for thread and even prevention of everything like baldness and bad breath.

Para7Besides subjects like cooking and household medicine, many women of the era read religious commentaries, sermons, and other spiritual guides. Scholar Georgianna Ziegler notes, that many of the books owned by women were religious in nature, but they also read works of literature and history, dictionaries, books about plants, household books, guides for behavior, and others. Frances Wolfreston (1607–1677), who had one of the largest libraries known for a non-noble woman, claimed a copy of a romance novel titled The Famous History of Montelyon, Knight of the Oracle by writing her name at the top of a page (Ziegler). Women also made humorous, handwritten notes their books. An example includes Elizabeth Benne, who wrote in her copy of Dorothy Leigh’s The Mothers Blessing (1640), a popular pamphlet in the form of a letter from an expectant mother to her unborn child: Elizabeth Benne is my name and with my pen I wrote the same and if my pen had been better I had write every letter.