Download or read book The Weaker Vessel written by Antonia Fraser and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 704 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Antonia Fraser's bestselling account of the lives of women in seventeenth-century England. Just how weak were the women of the Civil War era? What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown? Did anyone marry for love? Could a woman divorce? What rights had the unmarried? What expectations the widows? An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.