Sorry, tradbros; you would have hated medieval women, too

Hey bro, wanna be fully accountable for my debt

There’s this neo-libcon nostalgia for “medieval” life that honestly makes me shake laughing. Not for basic bitch reasoning like “you would have got the plague, bro” but because of the fantastically revisionist attitude they have to work, labour, freedom, and sex. Yep, you heard it here first: the memes are wrong, bro. You aren’t getting half the year off, a virgin submissive bride, and your own land. Welcome to why you would be screaming at me to take you back to 2024 and all of our malicious feminist modern mod-cons.

women could still choose their spouse, sorry

Women weren’t pure and virginal

This is a classic Victorian rewrite: the virgin maiden, blushing and youthful, totally oblivious to sex and eternally faithful and shy towards her superior, respected husband. The reality is that if you were a peasant woman (95% of you), you probably wouldn’t be a virgin when you got married. Marriage was something you often did when you were pregnant, with many marriage records resulting in a baby a few months later.

You also wouldn’t have married strategically at your father’s command: that was for the wealthier folk. The whole church wedding thing came later in history: most peasant weddings were local folk rituals and a…