Document 3 - Natalie Zemon Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, Stanford University Press, 1975.
"The woman’s role was defined by her place in the family and her relation to the men who headed it, yet she often found ways to exert her own agency within those boundaries. In the artisanal classes, a wife was not merely a domestic figure but a vital partner in the workshop, often managing accounts or overseeing apprentices when her husband was away. Her identity was a complex layering of daughter, wife, mother, and worker, each role carrying its own set of legal and social constraints. Even when the law limited her voice, the 'disorderly' woman could use public festivals or protests to challenge the status quo. By examining these moments of friction, we see that women were never passive recipients of culture. They were active participants who reshaped their world through both subtle negotiation and overt resistance."
