ROMANS LIFE 400 YEARS AGO.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14325, 15 October 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

ROMANS LIFE 400 YEARS AGO.

WHAT 'WAS EXPECTED OH' THE WIFE AND DAUGHTER. A picture of woman's lit'o in England 400 years ago is presented in the current Nineteenth. Century bv the licv. D. Wallace Dutliie, who has found material lor his article in the famous Pastoll Letters. The I'astons were a Norfolk family. One of the membors was a Justice of the Common Pleas, and his sons were nil persons of note and influence. The letters which passed between the members of the family, male and female, were culle:-t----ed by one of the I'aston descendants aud sold to an antiquary, and published by him Inward the- end of the iSth century. They were republished—edited by the late Mr. James Gairdner, the eminent- historian —some 40 years ajio. Ik-low are several passages from ilr. Duthie's article:— ••A Venetian who visited England about the year 1407 was shocked by the want of affection on the part of parents towards their children,, whom they treated harshly and put out to service in the houses of other people. At first si</hfc the case of Elizabeth Paston would seem to confirm his assertions. "There is little doubt' that in those days were brut-ally treated. Society incliniug in its conversation as in its leedini£ tu crossness, they found it ban! to escape obscene tnlk. They caught more than the echoes of the hard sw earing hoard on all sides, -uid imitated it, to the disgust of moralists , and preachers. In their own persons 'the** were liable to indignity and snb- ' jeeted to the roughest ot domestic ■ discipline. I ••Kliza.beth Paston was kept in see'u- , s:on by 3ior mother who would ; not permit her to sneak to any visitor or even to hold any conversation with, the servants of the house. - Ami.' continues Elizabeth Clere. her jiossip. she hath since Easter the most part boa ton once in the week or twice, and sometimes twice in one dav, and her head broken in two or three places." '• [ho threat anxiety of her mother was to he rid oi her. nor does she show a reluctance to be Even the personal disfigurement of Stephen Heropp. her senior by 30 years, could not anpal her, so anxious is she to marry and find a door of cscano from tiie irksomeness of Iter lot.

"But there is palliation for tiie parents as well as commiseration for their offspring. Undoubted]v there was much severity, a want of affection", more apparent perhans than real, and intrusion of commercialism into "what should have been the sacred domain of the family ties. "But Margaret Paston doled out her caresses with a deliberate niggardliness: she was uncomnassionate "in all kindness. For English homes were shll dominated bv the feudal : dea winch demanded iu the T ouih of both sexes self-repression and control: above all. a- respect for order. It s"nt outboys and girls into alien households that they might learn manners and what was due to others, and not from any motives of unconcern or selfishness. ... • "As her letters are the most numerous, so it is the oersonnlitv of Margaret Paston which engages us -"ho most. "Out of the whole arsenal of female vanity there is mention made onlv "n the letters of a. girdle, and something tor her neck, some black lnc» and cloth for a. gown or hood Sho bud o lore for positive colours, lfluo n;u l bri-J-t sanguine making an esnocial r-prje-dto her. " in the woman's own p-r-ovince oi attire she is willing to be gii'"ded by her husband. After the manner of her countrywomen, her attitude towards him is one of submission and resneet. Yet she possessed his confidence and affection to the full the iron bands of conventionality could not- always restrain his feel in'" when writing to ' myn owns dere sovereyn lady.' "