ABSTRACT
As an historical actor, the older woman is perhaps more subject to stereotyping than any other.1 She is able to achieve identity only if accused as a witch, or, more dimly, as a passive recipient of poor relief. Sometimes she gains brief authority as a witness in court, or fleeting notoriety as a scold, but in such contexts she is generically a woman, rather than specifically a woman of a certain age. Retrospectively, women of some substance can achieve a certain dignity as widows; the poor old woman, when she is visible at all, appears as either embittered, or helpless, or both. This is in spite of the fact that pre-industrial society had some use for the older woman at the level of wage-labour, albeit that the functions allocated to her were often double-edged, showing her to be as expendable - or at least replaceable - as she was useful. Some of these women-'sober, ancient matrons', with 'ancient' carrying some of the connotations of the 'ritual strength' usually attributed to older men - may have been regarded as having the 'manly-hearted' character made most explicit, paradoxically enough, in respect of the early modern midwife. The midwife's work could not have been more 'womanly', but she had a public identity akin (although hardly equal) to that of men. Midwifery was identified long ago by Alice Clark as 'the most important public function exercised by women'.2
