ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Protestant teachings about women, the family and the household. The social teachings of Protestant divines were, in fact, full of ambiguity and contradiction for women. The ministers taught women that they had souls to save, but their predestinarian theology limited the scope for individual action. Furthermore, although the Reformers discussed revision of the canon law relating to marriage, the proposed changes were never enacted, and the Protestant church continued to administer a version of the Catholic canons relating to marriage and separation. Companionate marriage was the ideal, with husband and wife sharing spiritual and family concerns in loving harmony. Economic life for single women was increasingly difficult in the early modern period, although the medieval period was no 'golden age' for single or any other women. Religious ideology which dignified the well-ordered family and household as a microcosm of God's plan for the world was one of the forces strengthening patriarchal control.
