|
|
|
The frontispiece of Samuel Rowland's 'Tis Merry When Gossips Meet.
|
|
The three conditions of women—maid, wife, and widow—define their legal status in terms of their sexual and marital relations to men. Wives and maids, unmarried women under the control of their fathers or male guardians, were femes covert; only the widow was a feme sole, with her own standing before the law.
| |
|
