ABSTRACT

Recent literature has argued that women in parts of the early modern Low Countries experienced high levels of ‘agency’ and ‘independence’ – measured through ages and rates of marriage, participation in economic activities beyond the household, and the physical occupation of collective or public spaces. Epidemic disease outbreaks, however, also help bring into focus a number of female burdens and hardships in the early modern Low Countries, possibly born out of structural inequalities and vulnerabilities obscured from view in ‘normal times’, and which is supported by recent demographic research showing heightened adult female mortality compared to male during epidemics. For women, these included expectations of care both inside and outside the familial household, different forms of persecution, and social controls via authorities from above and internal regulation within communities from below – though these were also restrictions that women of course did not always passively accept, and sometimes violently rejected.

摘要

最近的文献认为，在现代低地国家的部分地区，妇女经历了很高的“机构”和“独立性”，这可以通过年龄和结婚率，参与家庭以外的经济活动以及对集体或公共场所的实际职业来衡量。空格。然而，流行病的暴发也有助于使早期的现代低地国家的许多女性负担和困境成为焦点，这可能是由于结构性的不平等和脆弱性所导致的，而这种不平等和脆弱性是在“正常时期”中看不见的，最近的人口统计学研究对此予以了支持。流行期间成年女性死亡率高于男性。对于女性而言，这些期望包括对家庭家庭内部和外部的护理期望，不同形式的迫害，