What is an analysis of Women on the Margins?

Women on the Margins by Natalie Zemon Davis is the examination of three women born in Europe who each left behind extensive bodies of work –– memoirs, autobiographies, letters, and scientific publications. Davis uses the words written by the women themselves to show how they worked to overcome their marginalization and how they functioned within the restrictions placed on them by society. She shows how religion influences the lives of the women and uses their contrasts to show that women of the past were not all narrowly defined. 

One thing that helps tie the women's stories together is the role that religion played in their lives. Each woman is framed by her religious beliefs as they inform her daily choices. For example, Glikl bas Judah Leib, a Jewish woman, writes a memoir for her son that focuses not only on herself but on the Jewish community. Marie de l’Incarnation chose to marry according to her parents' wishes despite her longing to join a religious order, and later, as a widow, left her son in the care of her family to fulfill that goal. Maria Sibylla Merian joined a Protestant community which was founded by a man who believed that loyal Protestants had to pull away from the world. Each woman's life is shown to be in large part defined by her religion and her interpretation of it. 

Each woman was born into a society that narrowly defined womanhood, so she had to work to create her own definition. Lieb worked with her husband and later took over his businesses, expanding them. She wrote about things that weren't commonly thought of as the woman's sphere, including financial troubles. De l'Incarnation founded a Christian school for Amerindians and learned Huron, Algonquin, and Iroquois well enough to write books in those languages. Merian took her children and left her husband to join the community in Friesland. She continued working on her scientific publications at a time when science was largely the work of men; she even had to borrow money to finance her own education. If she had been male, it would have been covered for her. Each woman was dynamic and willing to take control of the world around her at a time when women were narrowly defined as mothers and wives.

Each woman is contrasted against the others to create a more complete picture of womanhood in the past. As Davis clearly shows at the beginning of the book –– in an imagined conversation between herself and the three women –– they wouldn't have agreed to be grouped together. Leib was devoted to her children; De l'Incarnation left her son to pursue her faith. Merian would have preferred being seen as a naturalist rather than being defined as a woman. But as Davis explains to the women, she put them "together to learn from [their] similarities and differences" (2). Each was the daughter of a merchant or artisan in Europe, and each was born in a city. But each woman made very different choices to pursue her goals. The similarities between the women help highlight the contrasts and fulfill Davis's goal of presenting a more diverse picture of women in the past. 

Davis is a historian and feminist scholar whose own studies inform her portrayal of the three featured women. She's known for honing in on "the everyday lives of those relegated to the boundaries of power –– peasants, artisans, women –– and the opportunities they made of their circumstances," according to her biography published by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2012, she won a National Humanities Medal.