Why Women Didn’t Outlive Men in the Middle Ages
Our World in Data indicates that women tend to live longer than men. Across the globe, this “longevity gap” is a well-documented phenomenon. But this wasn’t always the case. Rewind the clock to the Middle Ages, and the picture looks strikingly different. During this period, men often outlived women, a stark reversal of the current trend.
The Recurring Dangers of Childbirth for Women
Claims that medieval women had a one in three chance of dying in childbirth have been exaggerated by historians, but the reality was still shocking. Alice Reid shows how, in the pre-industrial period, maternal mortality of around 120 deaths per 10,000 births (1.2 per cent) was experienced time and again across decades of childbearing.
With families large and spacing short, the lifetime risk of dying in childbirth or from its consequences far exceeded the hazards men faced at work or in war. While maternal mortality in the UK today is only 1.3 per 10,000 pregnancies, in the medieval period, risks of pregnancy and childbirth were up to 100 times greater, and were caused by lack of hygiene, ignorance of anatomy, and no concept of risk-free surgical intervention. Even if childbirth wasn’t the biggest killer, it was a life-defining one.
Witchcraft Accusations Undermined Women Healers
The Canon Episcopi is the first stage of suspicion: women were said to be duped by the devil and to be disseminating harmful, false ideas. The idea that witches had real power maintained the stereotype of women as spiritually weak and gullible. This laid the foundation for later centuries, where these suspicions would become lethal accusations.
Ecclesiastical Laws Restricted Access to Healing Practices
Long before the popular witch hunts, canonical and ecclesiastical law had established parameters for policing spiritual and medicinal authority. Judging from the canonical collections gathered in The Witchcraft Sourcebook, Church authorities condemned any kind of healing that involved charms, incantations, or “superstitious” ritual as either suspicious or heretical, and this category was often indistinguishable from maleficium (harmful magic) in the minds of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Because midwives often used herbal remedies, prayers, or incantations when aiding in childbirth, they were at risk of coming under ecclesiastical scrutiny—even if their intent was therapeutic. As Levack’s texts demonstrate, women healers could be prosecuted or censured for unauthorized ritual practices that trespassed on the Church’s doctrinal territory.
Men Preferred Younger Brides Amid Harsh Life Expectancy
The value of women’s youth and fertility could also be an issue in medieval debates over marriage. For example, in Adversus Jovinianum, a fourth-century work written by Saint Jerome to refute the monk Jovinian, who claimed that virginity was no better than marriage. His propositions were met with strong opposition from the church hierarchy, which felt that chastity was superior.
The question of the value of youth in a wife became internalized into the medieval cultural imagination, and women’s bodies became valued for their reproductive capacities. This sentiment is at the heart of Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale, in which the aging knight January is searching for a young bride. He can only consider women under the age of twenty as wives since anyone older is not worthy in his eyes.
January’s attitude was shaped by the fact that life expectancy was short, and many women died in childbirth during medieval times; marriage to young women, who could provide heirs earlier than more mature women, made sense.
Nutritional Disadvantage
Food was often scarce, and what was available was not always distributed equally. In many households, men and boys were given preferential treatment at mealtimes. They received larger portions and more of the nutrient-dense foods, like meat and cheese, because their physical labor in the fields was seen as more critical to the family’s income.
This “food-gender bias” meant many women subsisted on a diet that was deficient in essential nutrients like iron and calcium. Anemia was widespread, further contributing to weakness, fatigue, and complications during pregnancy. Poor nutrition also made women more vulnerable to diseases that their better-fed male counterparts might have survived.
Medicine Was Theoretical, Not Practical for Survival
Medicine itself was far more theoretical than it was practical or curative. One’s understanding of health and disease was primarily based on the works of ancient scholars, such as Galen and Hippocrates, who focused on maintaining the balance of the humors.
Physicians themselves argued the preeminence of different bodily fluids as the cause of disease (blood, bile, phlegm), but their treatments, often in the form of bloodletting, purging, or various herbal concoctions, had limited impact on one’s likelihood of survival. Medical practice had not been empirically tested but was more “metaphoric, tied to theology and philosophy”.
Exclusion of women in professionalization
Jacoba Felicie de Almania was one of a small number of female practitioners in Paris during her trial in 1322, and in her defense, she had the testimony of many satisfied patients (she was even able to cure some cases that male physicians had not). However, she had one fatal flaw in the eyes of the doctors of the day: she had not received a degree from a university.
Physicians in Paris were required to be licensed by the Medical Faculty, which had effectively excluded women from the universities. Latin, scholarly medical texts, and the universities themselves were male preserves. Felicie de Almania, in her defense, states that she is “an expert and skilled woman who performs medicine by examining urine, taking pulses, and prescribing remedies… humble and prudent in her visits to women.” But the court backed the faculty’s position. She was forbidden from practicing medicine, had to pay a fine, and would be excommunicated if she did so in the future.
Infections and Plagues Exposed Gendered Vulnerabilities
Medieval plagues and recurring epidemics struck men and women alike, but the impact was often gendered. Women’s frequent exposure to childbirth, infant care, and nursing roles placed them at higher risk of contracting infections.
Even minor wounds could turn fatal without antiseptics, and postpartum fever — common after unsanitary deliveries — killed many mothers within days. Domestic roles also kept women in close contact with the sick, meaning that when waves of plague or leprosy swept through towns, female caregivers were disproportionately endangered.
Daily Cures: An Unfair Game Until the Scientific Method Started Testing
The majority of medieval people did not consult professional physicians but instead relied on household cures. These everyday treatments were passed down orally without any standardized control, so one salve could heal, but another could kill.
Ingestible mixtures sometimes included deadly herbs like hemlock or nightshade, used in small doses as an anesthetic but fatal if miscalculated. Some potions were based on superstition as much as science, like drinking a liquid “blessed” by a charm or slapping an animal part on a wound.
16 Best Jobs for Pregnant Women
16 Best Jobs for Pregnant Women
Pregnancy is a transformative and joyous period in a woman’s life, but it comes with unique challenges and demands. One of the most crucial aspects during this time is ensuring a healthy work-life balance.
Finding the right job during pregnancy is not just about earning an income; it’s about maintaining your health, well-being, and peace of mind.
Science Tells Us What To Expect As We Age: Strategies for Thriving in Later Life
Science Tells Us What To Expect As We Age: Strategies for Thriving in Later Life
How does aging affect our bodies and minds, and how can we adapt to those differences? These are questions that pertain to us all. Aging gradually alters people over decades, a long period shaped by individuals’ economic and social circumstances, their behaviors, their neighborhoods, and other factors. Also, while people experience common physiological issues in later life, they don’t follow a well-charted, developmentally predetermined path. Let’s take a look at what science has told us to expect.
