Along with the question about continuity or change in women’s history raised by Judith Bennett in History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), there’s the associated problem of periodization for women’s history. Bennett is unhappy with periodizing women’s history by the conventional periods, which are organised around male historical experience. She’s particularly unhappy with Joan Kelly’s idea (p 66) of an ‘inverted synchronization between women’s history and traditional history’, as in Kelly’s classic article ‘Did women have a Renaissance?’ (I think Bennett is right: I am increasingly inclined to the view that Kelly’s article was one of those significant points where the new question asked is very important, but the answer has taken people up the wrong track. It’s been productive for women’s historians to ask ‘Did women have a Transformation of the Roman World?’ etc, but it’s been counterproductive to try and squash the evidence into a paradigm of decline, as has happened frequently).

I’m quite happy to accept different periodizations for women’s history than other history (and indeed multiple ones for different classes of women or different aspects). However, Lisa Bitel’s argument (discussed briefly by Bennett p 134 and in more detail in “Period Trouble: The Impossibility of Teaching Medieval Feminist History" in Celia Chazelle and Felice Lifshitz, eds., Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies (Palgrave, 2007)) for the ‘wholesale rejection’ of ‘the master narrative of medieval history’ strike me as an unrealistic cop-out (and Bennett in her more pragmatic teacher mode of Chapter 7 accepts the need to work with such a master narrative). If we are trying to construct a periodization of women’s history, what might it look like? As Alexandra Shepard and Garthine Walker pointed out in their introduction to a special issue of Gender and History on periodization (p 454) ‘While familiar periodising categories have been declared inappropriate for the history of women, they have not usually been replaced by alternative schemas.’

At first glance, it’s difficult to see how we might get a periodization of women’s history that Bennett would like. One of her repeated arguments is that changes in women’s experiences don’t equate to changes in women’s status (see e.g. pp. 62, 74). The problem is, if you need changes in women’s status for periodization, you’re stuck with 3000 BC – 2000 AD as one period, which is not a whole heap of use.

However, there is an alternative, which Bennett refers to, but doesn’t really develop. This is her idea (p 59) of distinguishing ‘various sorts of historical patriarchy, particularly as they have interacted with various socioeconomic systems’. If you try starting a periodization of women’s history from the idea of historically changing patriarchies, then you can accommodate both the historical change we see and some of the continuity in women’s status.

How might such a very broad periodization look? Bennett wants to stress socioeconomic systems, which seems sensible, but I don’t think on their own they’re enough. I would want to add religious change, because I think religion has provided much of the ideological framework for patriarchy, at least in the West, as well as (more rarely) providing the ideological framework for attacking it. I’d also include as another variable the nature of the male elite. I think it does make a difference whether the men at the top of society are there on the supposed basis of their birth or their wealth or their intellectual superiority or their fighting ability.

Based on this, this is my initial attempt at a very broad typology of Western patriarchies. (I’m starting with the late antique period, because I’m not sure enough of some of the classical socioeconomic background):

1) Christianised patriarchy (from maybe 300-500 AD). Economically based on the ‘feudal mode of production’, ideologically on a Romanized Christianity and a civilian aristocracy.

2) Warrior patriarchy (500-1000/1100). Economically based on a ‘peasant mode of production’, ideologically on a warrior aristocracy and micro-Christianities.

3) Signeurial patriarchy (1000/1100 – 1350). Economically based on the feudal mode of production, ideologically on an officially defined Catholic Christianity and an institutionalised split between a warrior and a clerical elite.

The distinction between 2 and 3 and the date for them is tricky. Ideologically, the Gregorian Reforms seem key, but Chris Wickham (who developed the idea of the peasant mode of production) sees the feudal mode of production (I think) kicking in again earlier, about 800. (I’ve drawn a lot on Chris’s ideas on socio-economic periodization, but I admit I haven’t read all of Framing the Middle Ages yet, so if you want to argue the socio-economic bits in particular, please feel free to).

4) Commercial patriarchy (1350-1800). Economically based on early forms of capitalism, ideologically influenced by Protestantism, elite split between militarised aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.

It’s obviously slightly misleading to stress Protestant ideology when half the West wasn’t Protestant even in 1800, but I think the impact of Protestantism did mean a clarification and hardening of the official Catholic church’s position on women. A bigger problem is whether this period is too long: I’ve been influenced by Judith Bennett’s argument on the continuity of women’s work (and Martha Howells has a similar take on the gendered aspects of the commercial revolution, but Merry Wiesner-Hanks in the same issue argues against late medieval/early modern continuity (coming from a religious history perspective). I’d be particularly interested to hear more informed takes from people who work on these centuries

5) Industrial patriarchy (1800-late twentieth century) Economically based on industrial capitalization, ideologically on Protestantism, bourgeois elite.

6) Post-industrial patriarchy (late twentieth century to present). Economically based on globalised financial capitalism, secular ideology, very narrow bourgeois elite.

(Not all of the West has secularized, of course, but even in the US, since the 1960s there has been a challenge to Christian ideology and morality that is much more substantial than previously).

This is my provisional idea of broad periodization, and I’m aware that it ends up near traditional ones. But there was an Industrial Revolution for women: economic changes do have impacts on social structures, including patriarchal ones. What I have omitted is periodizations based on intellectual movements. This isn’t because women didn’t have a Renaissance, a Carolingian Renaissance, an Enlightenment etc, but they were relatively marginal to all these movements. I also haven’t said anything about the development of the state, which is an important part of conventional periodization, because right from the start, the state has been involved in women’s lives. There are extensive laws on women’s behaviour from Mesopotamian times, and one of the key justifications from early medieval times (if not further back) of the state’s attempts to control/monopolise violence has been the protection of ‘widows and orphans’. I’m not convinced that the development of administrative kingship or the modern state or absolutism was that significant for women’s experiences. But if you think there’s some other important factor I’ve missed, or you want to suggest a better periodization, feel free to weigh in.