Welcome to the Labor of Medieval Women

It's amazing how the more the world changes and time marches on, somethings stay the exact same. 

Paris Paloma recently released a song called Labour - spelt the British way. In the music video (that you can watch on YouTube), you see Paris laying out a table with food and drink. It appears to be set in a medieval or Game of Thrones type fantasy time period. The gentleman sits and begins to eat, while Paris lights a candle and watches him. She sings her complaints for her situation and fear for what would happen if she had a daughter. 

A little over halfway through the song, Paris gets up to leave the table - plate empty - thinks for a moment, then plops back down and grabs a pomegranate. The way Paris rips that pomegranate to bits, biting and tearing it apart so that the juice drips down her mouth and face like blood.

I could go into all of the beautiful imagery and symbolism in this music video. The verse,

"All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid

Nymph then a virgin, nurse then a servant

Just an appendage, live to attend him

So that he never lifts a finger

24-7, baby machine

So he can live out his picket fence dreams

It's not an act of love if you make her

You make me do too much labour",

is particularly relevant for anyone who has been caught in the many roles that women (in particular) are often forced to take on in a more heteronormative relationship. There's a lot to unpack with the song. 

But I especially like the medieval setting.

Coincidently, I also recently read a book called "The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society" by Eleanor Janega. I won an advanced reader copy in a GoodReads giveaway. Though the book had come out in January, I didn't get a chance to read it until now - roughly six months later.

It's an interesting and somewhat entertaining read. There were a few parts where I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the antics of medieval men and their thoughts on women. It didn't help that many of the ideas were playing with had originated in Greece. 

Particularly baffling were the beauty standards women had to live up to. To be beautiful meant you were virtuous and the virtuous didn't need to do anything to maintain their beauty. However, beauty standards in the medieval period were just as unattainable as they are today. Women were often encouraged to confess to their beauty routines during confession.

Oh and those beauty standards were very different from what is considered beautiful today. Modern (at least in the 2010s) favored the hourglass figure, while in the medieval time, it was the pear shape that drove men wild.

There is nothing "biological" about these preferences. They really are just preferences. 

Additionally, prostitution was tolerated because apparently, women needed to have sex.

Oh, men also needed to have sex, but it was the ladies who were never satisfied. Women could even demand a divorce if their husbands didn't give them enough sex. Naturally, this didn't happen very often. 

Most annoying, and most relevant to Paris Paloma's "Labour", was the fact that the women were often simply seen as an extension of their husbands. Yes, there are some notable women who did make a name for themselves (Elenore of Aquitaine is a notable example). However, this was more of an exception rather than a rule. 

Women always worked, whether in the fields or as artisans next to their husbands. Women were responsible for the house holds - especially upper class women who needed to take over a lot of the finances while their husbands were off fighting wars. Women did the cleaning - laundry has always been seen as women's work. Women taught their children and sometimes others. 

What might be considered women's work could become men's work if it proved to be profitable. Women didn't necessarily disappear from the work, but their names were often erased in favor of their husband's. It's not unlike how programming went from being women's work in its infancy (the 1940s-70s) until it became more profitable in the 1980s. Men are now seen as the leaders in the industry that was originally dominated by women.

So yeah, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I'd like to recommend both the song "Labour" and the book "The Once and Future Sex: Going Medieval on Women's Roles in Society". My cousin listened to the audio book and enjoyed that version just as much as I enjoyed the physical book. The song has a lot of great symbolism while the book has a great history and foundation for anyone building a fantasy world based on European medieval times. 

Until next week. 

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