Although the Renaissance may have focused on a return to classic literary and artistic models of the ancient societies, in reality it was a period of change—a culture in which people on the boundaries of society were beginning to assume a place in the mainstream. Along with the conflict over identifying the people who might have been a part of this cultural boundary, there began a significant debate over gender roles, more specifically, a concern about the increasing power of women in a society so clearly dominated by men.

Conduct literature was written in order to maintain the status quo in terms of gender roles and relations during this period. Typically written by men, even if offering a defense of women, this genre focused on a variety of different people, mostly settling on those people who would eventually come to be known as the middle class. The most widely distributed ideal focused on confining the wife and daughter to "private domesticity" in the homes of merchants or professional men. This ideal was also recreated in male-authored literary texts, as the "chaste, prudent wife became an admirable, if rare, character in city comedy; satires in highly profitable popular forms, were aimed at women who transgressed gender decorum."¹

As a specific genre, conduct books appear to go against a society in which traditional texts in medicine or theology had shown women to be fixed creatures. "Conduct books," however, as Ann Rosalind Jones says, "appear to be based on a different assumption." Even though these texts prove very confining to women, there is still a new idea involved, "that men and women can be produced. They are malleable, capable of being trained for changing roles; proper instruction can fashion them into successful participants in new social settings and the etiquettes belonging to them."²

A good part of this "proper instruction" found in conduct literature focuses on parenting, an area where women initially would have almost an exclusive role. The requirements for parenting in the Early Modern period were fairly strict and tended to focus on a few specific areas. Authors of parenting conduct literature were concerned above all with Piety. Parents were obligated to live out an example of this quality for their children. Richard Allestree explains in The Ladies Calling , "Piety and Vertue should be proposed to children as the most amiable as well as necessary things, and they should be invited not only to know, but love them"(p. 213). William Gouge, a prominent religious reformer and writer of pious conduct literature, uses scripture as the sole support of his treatise on the duties of parents, included in his tract, Of Domestical Duties.

The more general rules for parenting fall under the headings, "Love" and "Care," under which there is usually a distinction made between duties of mothers and those of fathers. There is an especially important concern with the role of a mother’s love in the lives of her children. Sometimes, the secure and loving bond between mother and child is violated, even perverted, by either a defect or an excess of love. The perils of love in excess are almost more of a concern than its defect, for most authors of conduct literature, as can be seen in Allestree:

To regulate the potential excesses of a mother’s love, Allestree issues a simple rule: that the mother neither hurt herself nor her children through her love for them.

According to most examples of literature about parenting, the nurturing of children consists in teaching them good manners and training them up to a good calling.³ The reasoning behind teaching a child good manners is hardly argued: they are a "comely and seemly thing" (Gouge, p. 530). Christians are to do all things decently and live by example—giving an outward ornament to piety and religion. Therefore, displaying good manners seems a Christian duty, and parents should teach a child as such.

There are a few general rules which parents should follow in choosing a particular calling for their children. First, there is a concern for basic education, "the groundwork of all callings" (Gouge, p. 534). Children must learn reading, writing, and the general principles of learning, to begin on the path to a future calling, and parents are obligated to teach these basic skills. The calling which children are trained in must also be in accordance with God’s law, Piety of course being the underlying rule for all aspects of child rearing. There should be an attempt to match the particular abilities of a child to the calling for which they are raised—whether the child is more inclined to work with the body or the mind should be observed. Aside from following this general pattern, parents may train a child as they see fit, though conduct literature pays special regard to the training of a child for the ministry, a true and noble calling of "the most comfort and contentment," for which few children are trained. (Gouge, p. 534)

The most significant role that a mother may have in raising her children when they are young, is that of teaching:

It is partly through the mother’s role in parenting, however, that we begin to see the differences in raising sons versus raising daughters. During the infancy and toddler years of their sons, mothers may have the more significant part to play, but once young boys reach a certain age, they are taken away from a direct maternal influence. As Diana Henderson points out, in The Theater and Domestic Culture,"...the mother bore an awful burden. She was placed in a position of subordination to her husband and eventually to the son she had earlier commanded." Some of Shakespeare’s history plays and tragedies provide an example of this idea. Queen Margaret in Richard III, for example, is a woman who has lost a husband and a son to Richard’s cruelty. Although she is not Richard’s mother, she clearly is one who had lost influence over her family, and is even called "foul wrinkled witch"(I, iii., 163) by Richard himself. The interaction of Hamlet and Gertrude also shows a mother locked in a subordinate role beneath her son.

During the early years of life, daughters and sons are raised in much the same way, especially being taught the basic tenets of Christianity, as well as encouraged to respect and honor their parents. At a certain point, however, things change--daughters and sons require different types of care. Mothers are primarily encouraged to protect young girls from the ways of the world. As Richard Allestree says, "‘Tis therefore in this respect a very useful part of the Mothers care, to make herself company to her daughter, to prevent the dangers of a more unequal and infectious converse" (The Ladies Calling, p. 216). While boys were taken away from the maternal environment at about age seven, to receive a formal education, daughters were brought up in a more restricted fashion. As Suzanne Hull suggests, "The properly raised daughter had not only prescriptions for behavior but restrictions on her activities much beyond those suggested for her brothers." ⁴ Thomas Becon, who wrote a significant how-to-live guide during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, gives an example of the differences of between the conduct of sons versus that of daughters. He takes one page only to cover "The Office and Duty of Young Men Unmarried," but it takes almost five times as much to cover "the proper behavior and duty of Maids and Young Unmarried Women."⁵ More than one conduct manual, including Becon’s, advises parents to take more diversity and care in raising their daughters than they do in raising their sons. Sons are perhaps allowed to find their own way in the world, to make their own mistakes and enjoy their own successes. Daughters were to be sheltered and protected in all things. Perhaps the word "diversity" ought not be used in describing the care of daughters at all.

Although it seems that mothers are encouraged to spend a significant amount of time with daughters, the respect that daughters should have for their mothers is clearly subordinate to that for their fathers. Despite this lower level of respect, mothers may have been expected to live by example--encouraging their daughters to remain chaste and obedient, never to stray or think evil thoughts. If the daughter is beset with these thoughts, however, Juan Luis Vives (a Spanish humanist patronized by Catherine of Aragon) suggests, that she should spend time with her mother:

After being raised in the household and married (usually at the father’s discretion), daughters might still receive directions from their parents, the mother included. In 1615, the following "Letter of Counsell from a Discreet Mother to her Daughter, Newly Married," was printed in a book of sample letters:

My good daughter, thou art now going into the world and must leave to be a child, and learn to be a mother and to look to a family rather than to the entertainment of a friend...avoid tattling gossips yet be kind to thy neighbors and no stranger to thy kindred, be gentle to thy servants but not overfamiliar, have an eye to the door and a lock to thy chest, keep a bit for a beggar and a bone for a dog...take heed abroad of the kite and within of the rat.7

Although a father may ultimately have more practical control over the raising of the family, (i.e.: arranging marriages, providing access to education, providing financially for the family), the mother is clearly expected to provide a good example of how to live. It is unfortunate, however, that in many cases, the only way in which mothers may be able to give advice to their children, or have any kind of influence in their lives, is to write a legacy for them, and perhaps subsequently die in childbirth, or to write later epistles to the children when they are grown. The advice and example of mothers seems to have been nonetheless necessary--the letter from the "discreet mother" might be welcome in the mailbox of a new bride even today .

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