300 years of Scottish women
MichelleWard examines a new survey of women in Scotland over the past three centuries
W. W. J. Knox
Routledge, 2021
268 pages
Hardback, £120.00 / ebook, £31.44 ISBN: 9780367700096 / 9781003144212
In the introduction to Women and Scottish Society, 1700–2000, W. W. J. Knox explains that source material on the lives of past Scottish women is limited. Most 18th- and 19th-century documents relating to women focus on those from the upper classes or those associated with prominent men. This reflects the patriarchal nature of society at a time when women were first the property of their fathers, then their husbands.
Knox nevertheless provides a comprehensive overview of women’s social roles. The book covers the family and household, education, the workplace, politics, sexuality, religion, and crime and punishment. Each chapter starts with a useful summary and is then divided into the three centuries, making it easy to follow the logical progression of social and cultural changes in women’s standing.
Knox backs his discussions by quoting relevant acts and laws in Scotland, often comparing them to English equivalents. The complexity of this terrain becomes apparent if we consider the different types of marriage available in Scotland. ‘Regular’ marriage was performed in front of a minister in a church following the reading of banns, but there was also ‘clandestine’, or ‘irregular’ marriage. This was a legal union formed if a couple declared themselves married in front of witnesses, whether or not the relationship was subsequently consummated, or if marriage was promised and the couple subsequently entered a sexual relationship. Marriages ‘by habit and repute’ were also legal ‘if a couple usually presented themselves in public as man and wife’ (p.18). ‘Handfasting’, or the binding of hands, was a kind of trial marriage, sometimes formalised in legal terms, which could be dissolved after a year and a day.
Family historians researching their Scottish heritage will enjoy the descriptions of 18th- and 19th-century social life, and find Knox’s explanations of Scottish terminology particularly helpful. Useful snippets include the mention of the ‘bondager system’, whereby ‘a male farm servant had to guarantee the provision of the labour of one woman for 40 days without pay and another at a modest wage’ (p.88); ‘deforcement’, or the ‘hindrance or resistance to officers of the law in the execution of their duty’ (p.18); and the ‘Dredgy’, an after-funeral feast.
The book also explores geographical variations. Knox describes how women in the highlands and islands, left to cope by themselves on the crofts while the men were away, led a more independent life than those in urban areas such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, where the ‘sex typing of occupations obstructed the goal of unlimited possibilities for women’ (p.107). All the same, ‘women were the main and active agents of changing their lives for the better’ (p.247), as seen in the suffragette movement.
Knox describes how women in the highlands and islands, left to cope by themselves on the crofts while the men were away, led a more independent life than those in urban areas
The lives of the majority of women started to change in the early 1900s, when industrialisation transformed the jobs traditionally performed by women outside the home.The agricultural worker or domestic servant become a factory or office worker. Living standards improved from the 1950s, as technological developments reduced household labour, and the rise of dual-income households meant increased ownership of consumer durables. Knox also highlights the importance of the contraceptive pill, which allowed women to control their reproductive cycles and maintain careers after marriage.
Knox is sometimes heavy-handed in highlighting the injustices of patriarchal society. The prominence of this modern perspective distracts from the historian’s task of understanding the past on its own terms. In places, the book also reads rather more like a doctoral thesis than a work aimed at the general public. However, despite the biases in his source material, Knox succeeds in providing a very detailed discussion of the role of women of all classes in Scotland during the last 300 years.
MichelleWard is a copyeditor and proofreader specialising in historical fiction and non-fiction. She can be contacted via her website: www.brooklanguageservices.com.