page_title: Women's rights
section_title: Western Europe
hierarchical_section_title: Women's rights / History / Post-classical history / Western Europe
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Mariage de Marie de Brabant et du roi Philippe III de France. Manuscrit des Chroniques de France ou de Saint Denis, British Library, London. Deutsch: Heirat Marias von Brabant mit dem französischen König Philipp III. von Frankreich, Miniatur aus der Handschrift Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis, British Library, London. English: Maria of Brabant's marriage with the French king Philip III of France, miniature in the manuscript Chroniques de France ou de St. Denis, British Library, London. English: Detail of a scene in the bowl of the letter 'P' with a woman with a set-square and dividers; using a compass to measure distances on a diagram. In her left hand she holds a square, an implement for testing or drawing right angles. She is watched by a group of students. In the Middle Ages, it is unusual to see women represented as teachers, in particular when the students appear to be monks. She is most likely the personification of Geometry, based on Martianus Capella's famous book De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, [5th c.] a standard source for allegorical imagery of the seven liberal arts. Illustration at the beginning of Euclid's Elementa, in the translation attributed to Adelard of Bath. Français&#160;: Détail d'une enluminure du XIVe siècle, contrepoinçon d'une lettre capitale P, au début des Éléments d'Euclide, dans une traduction attribuée à Adélar de Bath. Une femme porte une équerre d'une main et utilise un compas de l'autre pour mesurer des distances sur un diagramme. Un groupe de moines, apparemment ses étudiants, la regardent. Au moyen-age, la représentation d'une femme dans un rôle d'enseignant est inhabituelle. La femme représentée ici serait donc plutôt une personnification de la géométrie. English: 15th century illustration from Giovanni Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris. In the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
context_page_description: Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide, and they formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movement during the 20th century. In some countries, these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behavior, whereas in others, they are ignored and suppressed. They differ from broader notions of human rights through claims of an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women and girls, in favor of men and boys.
  Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, to be free from sexual violence, to vote, to hold public office, to enter into legal contracts, to have equal rights in family law, to work, to fair wages or equal pay, to have reproductive rights, to own property, and to education.
context_section_description: Women's rights were protected already by early Medieval Christian Church: one of the first formal legal provision for the right of wives was promulgated by council of Adge in 506, which in Canon XVI stipulated that if a young married man wished to be ordained, he required the consent of his wife.
  The English Church and culture in the Middle Ages regarded women as weak, irrational and vulnerable to temptation who was constantly needed to be kept in check. This was reflected on the Christian culture in England through the story of Adam and Eve where Eve fell to Satan's temptations and led Adam to eat the apple. It was belief based on St.Paul, that the pain of childbirth was a punishment for this deed that led mankind to be banished from the Garden of Eden. Women's inferiority also appears in many medieval writing for example the 1200 AD theologian Jacques de Vitry (who was rather sympathetic to women over others) emphasized for female obedience towards their men and expressed women as being slippery, weak, untrustworthy, devious, deceitful and stubborn. The church also promoted the Virgin Mary as a role model for women to emulate by being innocent in her sexuality, being married to a husband and eventually becoming a mother. That was the core purpose set out both culturally and religiously across Medieval Europe. Rape was also seen in medieval England as a crime against the father or husband and violation of their protection and guardianship of the women whom they look after in the household. Women's identity in the Middle Ages was also referred through her relations with men she was associated with for example "His daughter" or "So and so's wife". Despite all this, the Church still emphasized on the importance of love and mutual counselling within a marriage and prohibited any form of divorce so the wife would have someone to look after her.
  In overall Europe during the Middle Ages, women were inferior to that of a man in legal status. Throughout medieval Europe, women were pressured to not attend courts and leave all legal business affairs to their husbands. In the legal system, women were regarded as the properties of men so any threat or injury to them was in the duty of their male guardians.
  In Irish law, women were forbidden to act as witnesses in courts. In Welsh law, women's testimony can be accepted towards other women but not against another man, but Welsh laws, specifically The Laws of Hywel Dda also reflected accountability for men to pay child maintenance for children born out of wedlock, which empowered women to claim rightful payment. In France, women's testimony must corroborate with other accounts or would not be accepted. Although women were expected to not attend courts, this however was not always true. Sometimes regardless of expectation, women did participate and attend court cases and court meetings. But women could not act as justices in courts, be attorneys, they could not be members of a jury and they could not accuse another person of a felony unless it's the murder of her husband. For most part, the best thing a woman could do in medieval courts is observe the legal proceedings taking place.
  The Swedish law protected women from the authority of their husbands by transferring the authority to their male relatives. A wife's property and land also could not be taken by the husband without her family's consent but neither could the wife. This mean a woman could not transfer her property to her husband without her family or kinsman's consent either. In Swedish law, women would also only get half that of her brother in inheritance. Despite these legal issues, Sweden was largely ahead and much superior in their treatment towards women than most European countries.
  Medieval marriages among the elites were arranged in a way that would meet the interests of the family as a whole. Theoretically a woman needed to consent before a marriage took place and the Church encouraged this consent to be expressed in present tense and not future. Marriage could also take place anywhere and minimum age for girls would 
caption: Royal women's activities in the Middle Ages
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