Introduction: Women Adapting to Capitalism

Abstract

Thus did Fuller describe Essex, using suggestive female imagery, in 1662. Across the central north of the county of Essex runs a band of heavy clay, rich and fertile when given appropriate management. The north east of the county is the traditional textile producing region. In the south of the county, the Essex ‘hundreds’ are a marshy area which when partially drained produced rich arable farmland and some pasture on the saltings. Essex’s long coastline meant the produce of the county could easily be transported by sea to market. Essex borders on the greatest of all national markets and the centre of operations for overseas trade — the city of London, and this has shaped the economic history of the county.²

This county is charactered like the good wife described by Bathsheba ‘She layeth her hand to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaffe’.... It will not be amiss to pray that the Plough may go along and the wheel around so that, being fed by the one and clothed by the other, there may be, by God’s blessing, no danger of starving in our nation.¹