SOURCE: “The Practical Guidebooks,” in Chaste, Silent & Obedient: English Books for Women, 1475-1640, Huntington Library, 1982, pp. 41-70.

In the essay below, Hull surveys the types and content of social conduct books published in England, primarily in the sixteenth century.

More than half (eighty-five) of all the books for women were practical, how-to-do-it guides—though the advice was frequently general and philosophical. They gave counsel or instructions on how to educate young girls, how to live as a wife, as a widow, or as a nun, how to give birth to babies (although few gave any practical guidance on raising children), how to behave to servants, how to write letters, garden, cook, dress, use English correctly, speak French, create fine needlework, or how to concoct the homemade medications of the day. One even summarized the English laws that related to women. It is this group of books that reveals...