Misogyny, Jest‐Books and Male Youth Culture in Seventeenth‐Century England

Abstract

In 1650, the author of a pamphlet defending women cited the advice of Solomon in order to urge his male readers not to be contentious and hateful, but to love their wives, hoping that the words of such a 'wise man' would:. . . quell those foolish mens follies which utter and write such invectives, and fantastic revilings, taunts, and iests against women, for these are those wicked spirits the Devills Agents, which soweth discord, and breedeth contentions, kindling the coles of strife, hatred, and disdaine in divers families betwixt man and wife never perswading to peace, love or unity, which should hide and cover all domestick iarrs or trespasses; and they make as though a woman were but as a meere cipher, and stood for nothing. 1In referring to those who wrote and uttered 'iests against women', the pamphleteer may have been thinking of the authors and readers of jest-books, cheap printed texts that reveal much about gender relations and the politics of plebeian households in early modern England, albeit through the darkened glass of sexist bigotry. The following examination of several seventeenth-century jest-books suggests that their misogynist humour pleased some sorts of men, while others found it offensive, building on and reinforcing recent scholarship on patriarchy and meanings of manhood in early modern England. 2 Patriarchy as an analytical concept has come to define the writing of histories of women, gender and masculinity. Judith Bennett has been a forthright and pioneering advocate of such an approach, arguing that feminist scholars should examine the enduring nature of patriarchy in its many forms in order to explain how women as victims and agents colluded in, undermined and survived this dominant gender ideology. 3 In her most recent work, Bennett continues to emphasise the need to explain how the 'patriarchal equilibrium' was maintained, and to consider both continuities and transformations in women's experiences and gender relations. 4 Following Bennett's lead, Anthony Fletcher argued that changing theories about the body in early modern England led to new readings of gender and the refashioning of patriarchy through the reconstruction and reinterpretation of theology, philosophy, law and custom. Fletcher emphasised the role of culture in this process, arguing that proverbs, drama and cheap print reflected male anxieties about the instability of patriarchy and the disorderliness of female behaviour. 5 The jocular nature of much C

Disability Humour in English Jestbooks of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

“…According to Reinke-Williams, many jokes may have had their origins in the banter of adolescent jokesters, often apprentices who were themselves subordinated by patriarchal institutions and who channelled their rebellion not so much against authority as against the other significant subordinated group, women. 36 But whoever the jestbook authors and readers were, women were clearly a laughing matter. Located in several categories of the humorous at once, disabled women would seem a natural target for scorn, but in fact they were not as purposefully mocked as one would expect.…”