Caged in

Norwich Guildhall
Site of one of the many sets of stocks in Norwich and also the 'cage'

When Agnes Leaman was ducked it was for the "abominable act of whoredom", although most women accused of adultery and fornication were whipped, so too the men who were caught with them. Duckings were relatively rare and most of them were reserved for women accused of scolding and brawling behaviour. Women like Alice Cocker who was set in the ducking stool for being a, common skold and a brawler and a women of disquiet amonst her neighbors and for that she did beat Ellen Dingle and Joanne Tymouth. It was a time when women were meant to be passive and bound to their home. As one contemporary writer, Edmund Tilney in his Flower of Friendship put it, It is the office of a husband to deal and bargain with men, of the wife to make and meddle with no man. And women who did not subscribe to that view were punished sometimes harshly. I say sometimes, because the treatment of Alice Cocker was exceptional. She was ducked not for the scolding; the arguing and insulting her neighbours, but for the physical violence she had used. In other words Alice was punished for extreme anti social behaviour and not just because she was a women who dared open her mouth.

Indeed most women accused of scolding were set in the stocks, just like any drunken and disorderly man might be. Either that or she would be set in the cage; literally a cage which as far as I can tell hung from the side of the guildhall. In 1657, Mary the wife of Thomas [was] ordered to be put in the cage for skoldinge and other misdemeaners by the space of one hower. Although in her case I think it must have been a close run thing between the cage and the duck stool, for as well as scolding her neighbours Mary's "other misdemeaners" included a violent assault on a woman called Sybil Chapman and her husband was ordered to pay five shillings to Sybil, for satisfaction of a battery committed upon her.

Most cases of caging women though were only for the very petty 'crime' of scolding and other verbal abuse. Women like Rebbeca Marsden who also in 1657 was, sett in the cage one whole hower for scolding and abusing Mr John Andrews Alderman.

Although I've played down the punishment of women again, there may be some still thinking that women had a hard time of it in Early Modern England, but remember that some men also made it into the cage for 'brawling' and there were other gendered punishments for men. Its also worth noting that for all the punishments aimed at women, they still had a voice. For I deal with realities of life in the past as shown in the court records and not the idealised version promoted by Tilney and many others. Real women like Margaret Caley who clearly had not read the advice of Edmund Tilney, or if she had she was more than happy to treat it with the contempt it deserved. For in July of 1621 it was reported that, Margaret Caley on Witsun Tuesday last past did revile and miscall Christopher Gyles and often tymes claped her hand on her backside, and badd him kisse there. Margaret was a women who clearly didn't know and didn't care about her place in Stuart society, although she was commited to the Bridewell house of correction for her rudeness.