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The Worlds of the Renaissance Projects, 2000

Women in the Renaissance Lab

(10) Document 8 Thomas More, Utouia. trans by Paul Turner, (London, England: Penguin Books. 1965)

Thomas More was a leading humanist and privy councillor to Henry VIII of England. He was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to renounce his loyalty to the Pope and uphold Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Utopia, written m 1516, is Thomas More's idea of a perfect civilization.

But let's get back to their social organization. Each household, as I said, comes under the authority of the oldest male. Wives are subordinate to their husbands, children to their parents, and younger people generally to their elders.

Husbands are responsible for punishing their wives, and parents for punishing their children, unless the offence is so serious that it has to be dealt with by the authorities, in the interests of public morality.

So everybody learns one of the other trades I mentioned, and by everybody I mean the women as well as the men - though the weaker sex are given the lighter job, like spinning and weaving, while the men do the heavier ones.

(10) Document 8	Thomas More, Utouia. trans by Paul Turner, (London, England: Penguin Books. 1965)
	Thomas More was a leading humanist and privy councillor to Henry VIII of England. He was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to renounce his loyalty to the Pope and uphold Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Utopia, written m 1516, is Thomas More's idea of a perfect civilization.
	But let's get back to their social organization. Each household, as I said, comes under the authority of the oldest male. Wives are subordinate to their husbands, children to their parents, and younger people generally to their elders.
	Husbands are responsible for punishing their wives, and parents for punishing their children, unless the offence is so serious that it has to be dealt with by the authorities, in the interests of public morality.
	So everybody learns one of the other trades I mentioned, and by everybody I mean the women as well as the men - though the weaker sex are given the lighter job, like spinning and weaving, while the men do the heavier ones.