Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr

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Book: Read Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr for Free Online
Authors: Linda Porter
and impute to literature what is really the fault of nature, thinking from the virtues of the learned to get their own ignorance esteemed as virtue. On the other hand, if a woman (and this I desire and hope with you as their teacher for all my daughters) to eminent virtue should add an outwork of evenmoderate skill in literature, I think she will have more profit than if she obtained the riches of Croesus and the beauty of Helen.

    He went on to emphasize his belief that there should be no distinction between the education of daughters and sons:

Nor do I think that the harvest will be affected whether it is a man or a woman who sows the field. They both have the same human nature and the power of reasoning differentiates them from the beasts; both, therefore, are equally suited for those studies by which reason is cultivated, and is productive like a ploughed field on which the seed of good lessons has been sown. 11

    This mix of classical allusion and agricultural metaphor was typical of the man and his times, and More’s insistence that learning, especially in women, was not an end in itself but could only be fully effective as part of a morally centred approach to life, was a theme found generally among writers on the education of women. The Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives, in The Education of a Christian Woman , a work dedicated to Katherine of Aragon and offered as a blueprint for the upbringing of Princess Mary, emphasized the importance of virtue, domestic skills and womanly restraint, while sharing More’s views that women could – and, indeed, should – learn as effectively as men. He held that it was the roles of men and women in society, not their basic intellects, that were different.
    In our age, where women’s view of themselves has been greatly influenced by the debates on feminism of the second half of the twentieth century, these views sound patronizing rather than progressive. But the sixteenth century had never heard of feminism, and though much has undoubtedly been learned from studying women of the period, ‘gender studies’ is a modern invention and has become a growth industry. Like all constructs projected on to the past it can be enlightening but also misleading. Maud Parr’s approach to the education of her family wasevidently admired by Lord Dacre, who thought it would benefit his grandson, but the mixed schoolroom at Rye House was also a product of Maud Parr’s situation as a widow who needed to live within her means. By including pupils from the wider family, better quality tuition was more affordable and ties of kinship were reinforced. Families with the right combination of wealth and social standing had long been able, if they so desired, to educate their daughters, at least to competent standards of literacy. Much depended on the aptitude of the girls themselves and the attitude of the head of the family, who, in Tudor times, was almost always male. Maud Parr was an exception – not unique, for other women of her time recognized the benefits of widowhood – and she undoubtedly wanted the best for her daughters, within the framework of the society in which she lived. But her son, as we shall see, was always her priority.
    Katherine Parr grew up well aware of this reality. Scripture told her that women were, indeed, the weaker vessel, fashioned from Adam’s rib, and less perfect than men. St Paul certainly thought so and the Church establishment over the centuries, overlooking the more liberal attitude of Jesus himself, had followed suit. Most commentators on the subject considered the female to be diminished by her sexuality. She existed to bear children and be a helpmate. In the running of a household this latter expectation was of considerable importance and was no lightweight responsibility. Marriage was a partnership of sorts, but not an equal one. A successful and loving marriage nevertheless allowed scope for the development of personal interests, such as Katherine herself

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