I'm working with the Paston Letters for this project and I'm really enjoying exploring them and piecing together the family dynamic - which was really complicated. My project is going to explore how women exercised agency within the family, using the Paston's as a case study. So far, my research leads me to believe that agency was tied to wealth, and that women were able to exercise a decent amount of agency, but serious agency might have come with the stigma of flaunting social norms.
Good start and way to focus in on a specific part of the family dynamic. Just make sure your using a wide variety of sources so you get the full range of variables such as class, race, age, etc. In order to make this write-up clearer id explain what agency means in the context your using it in.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the suggestions; I'll take them into consideration. I'll work the definition of agency into the introduction.
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