The Gendered Narrative of Witch-Hunting Through the Centuries (original) (raw)
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Women, Society and Law: from Roman Law to Digital Age, 2022
Witches bring to mind magic, secrets, and power. The fi gure of a witch is highly associated with the effi gy of an old woman living in a little, obscure cottage with her black cat and a fl ying broom or a teenage girl saving the world. That stereotypical image does not emphasise the actual historical impact of the witch trials in the Early Modern Ages and the role of women in society afterwards. Women were four times more likely to be accused than men. The gender nature of the crime of witch persecution might remind a disease of the 17 th century, a female-transmitted virus. The hypothesis shall be answered-was the witchcraft madness caused by a fear of women or were the women scapegoats of the patriarchal system? The assessment ought to be scrutinised based on religious, socio-cultural, and economic reasons. Moreover, the trials of New England counties like Salem, Yorkshire, and Suff olk may familiarise one with the legal reasoning standing behind the prosecution. Therefore, the analysis showcases religious impact on the witch trials via Malleus Malefi carum written as a result of Pope Innocent VIII's bull. It focused on the presence of sin already in a woman's nature (alleging original sin committed by Eve) and implemented the idea of women as the devil embodiment. Witches became a tool in the Catholic-Protestant confl ict unifying sides against one enemy. Economically, this race between Protestants and Catholics was crucial for Early Modern England because the money was held by the Church. Food shortages and the little ice age needed a scapegoat. The socio-cultural aspect seems to be the most signifi cant one, as when something unwanted happened in the domestic corner, a child falling ill or milk acidifying, witchcraft was the fi rst idea pointed at a woman. The environment of a household is the only powerful position due to child-rearing and feeding. All in all, women were supposed to be obedient, so each example of rebellious acts or disagreement with men was treated as a symptom of bewitching.
The Woman-as-witch stereotype in Early Modern England, Continental Europe and New England
inter-disciplinary.net
Witchcraft is construed by many historians and anthropologists as the most extreme expression of female deviance and empowerment. Charges of the crime of witchcraft were time and again levied against women who were imagined as eluding or subverting the social conventions of patriarchal control. Besides this, more than mere inherited medieval superstitions, witchcraft beliefs were also ideas that evolved, varied from cultural context to cultural context and ended up undergoing their biggest changes and pervasiveness during the Early Modern Period -both in the Old and in the New World. Thus, the Early Modern Period's stereotype of the witch is viewed by many scholars as the ultimate representation of society's misogynistic fear of female deviance and evil.
Patterns of English Witchcraft
English witchcraft typically originated in neighborly conflict in which the refusal of charity or a favor resulted in the neighbor feeling guilt and expecting supernatural punishment. In a form of self-fulfilling prophesy, the refusing neighbor attributed misfortune to the neighbor they had refused, accusing them of witchcraft.
Between the years 1450 and 1750, approximately 72,500 women were formally accused and 45,000 were executed for witchcraft in Britain and Europe. 1 The question of why so many women were accused of witchcraft is bound up with two other questions: why were so many people thought to be witches 2 and why were so many of them old, widowed, poor women. Historians have identified many possible reasons why women were targeted as witches, including: demonology and patriarchal misogyny; social issues of sexuality, conflict, motherhood and charity refused; envy and guilt; economic motivations; and prevailing belief systems. Clearly women accused as witches were often old and poor, had some traditional healing skills and were sometimes bad-tempered but the same could be said of many women who were not accused. Nevertheless significant numbers of accused were married, had businesses or farms, were youngor at least not old per sewere no poorer than their accusers and, of course, one in four of them were men.
Fortid, 2021
This essay discusses the historical origins of the witchcraft trial phenomenon, its roots, and the causes for its occurrence in New England from a historical, social, anthropological, and gender perspective. Salem witchcraft had its roots in Europe and in order to understand it one should comprehend the worldview of late-seventeenth-century Puritan New Englanders, who lived in a pre-Enlightenment world. As many historians and researchers have pointed out the people of Salem experienced a number of hardships at the time of the witch trials, such as economic struggles, disease epidemics, war, political dissension, and factionalism and thus the Salem witchcraft trials cannot be described apart from its social, cultural, theological, economic, and political contexts. Moreover, understanding the geographical and chronological phases of the trials and investigations is important. Finally, it is interesting to see how growing awareness of feminist perspectives on history, have generated a new feminist interpretation of the witchcraft trials.
Witch Hunts and the Oppression of Women
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A witch traditionally has been considered a wise woman. The title was an acknowledgement of ancient wisdom and applicable modalities which had been practiced
Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe
The gender and social structure of society, economic conditions and the impact of Christianity following the Reformation and Counter-Reformation were among the reasons why witchcraft became a crime in Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. By examining the characteristics of those who were accused of witchcraft and the religious and economic conditions of the period, it becomes apparent that the criminalisation of witchcraft was a result of dominance of the strong over the weak and vulnerable.
Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 2003
Analyses concerning the gender of the witches in Europe in the 15th-18th centuries show an unanimous female dominance. According to European statistics-as much as it can be r econstructed from the records of the trials-the percentage of men accused of witchcraft was 80-85%. The question " why witches are women " cannot be answered with a simple explanation based on a single factor. The witch-accusations were not homogeneous at all, and, what is more, the co n cept of the witch was made up of several components in the background of the different witchtypes. There are many kinds of social conflicts and ideological clashes acting as factors inducing witch-accusations. These factors emphasize the female side of the witch-stereotype and increase the number of female reputed witches. Thus, in connection with the different types of Early Modern r ural witchcraft, the answer to our question is briefly the following: the majority of the witches was woman because the majority of the accusations was based on conflicts that could develop in the f emale spheres of private and communal life. Another important point is that the accusations were supported by a " female " witch-ideology and mythology: with certain kinds of conflicts and certain witch-types, this female mythology could become in itself a factor inducing witch-accusations. These two " female " factors-the social and ideological i ncentives of the witch-accusations-could function hand in hand and thus inevitably lead to the female dominance in witch-accusations. The joint fun ctioning of these factors-and their reinforcing effect on each other-resulted in the far higher pr oportion of female witches.