ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at a perhaps uniquely rich source on poor men and poor women in early modern England: the Norwich Census of the Poor of 1570. The census provides an unusual opportunity to compare inequalities among the poor themselves, and in particular the different situations of men and women. Among the poor, more naked than their better-off contemporaries, age becomes more glaringly an aspect of inequality, especially, perhaps, inequality between the sexes. Consciousness of age could be in itself pardy a reflection of inequality, in so far as it became a feature of Elizabethan poor law administration. The decision to marry is thus a significant focus for discussion about inequalities between men and women. In recent decades, attention has shifted to marriage as the main fulcrum of demographic change, representing the decisions of the many in respect of economic circumstances. Most of the attention is still given to the process of first marriage, and hence to younger age groups.
