Women during the Age of Reason

6. The old woman tells Candide: “Imagine my situation, the daughter of a pope, only fifteen years old, who in the space of three months had been exposed to poverty and slavery, had been raped almost daily, had seen her mother torn to pieces, had endured war and famine, and was now dying of the plague in Algiers” (p. 29). What does this passage, and others like it, suggest about the reality of women’s lives during the Age of Reason? 


6. Many women during the Age of Reason were seen as weak and less of a human being than a man. Women also had little to no education whatsoever. The main role of a woman during this time period was to please men. It was also not against the law to physically abuse women, so a lot of men got away with treating women like pieces of meat. Men saw women as being inferior to them. Women during this period were basically slaves.