Often in literature the title of a book gives insight to the lives of characters within the book, but insight to the society as well. In the book, Women on the Margins by Natalie Zemon Davis, she writes about three women in different locations across Europe in the 17th century. Those three women represent a change in society for all women across the continent in that time period as well. The women he uses have their own distinct method of becoming more apart of society. With the examples of these women extending themselves into new boundaries that have never been attempted before. The title Women on the Margins has a meaning that shows what boundaries women are starting to push in an era where women are limited professionally.
The first women Zemon depicted in her book was a Jewish Merchant woman named Glucken von Hameln. Also known as Glikl, lived in seventeenth century Germany. Just like any other merchant during that time her and her family are members of the upper middle class of the German society. The next character portrayed, Marie De l" Incarnation, also known as Marie Guyart a missionary from France who traveled to Quebec. The final person depicted in this book, Maria Sibylla Merian, of Amsterdam who will travel to the Suriname. All three of these women provide insight into a new horizon for women to achieve in the seventeenth century. .
The word "margin" referenced as a situation in which is not part of the normal activity. All three of these women had experience that were unique that helped them become successful. In the case of Glikl and her Jewish heritage, made it very hard for her to survive in a Christian world without any kind of protection from the monarch. The German Jewish community, also known, as hochdeutshe Juden, became the center of Jewish life in Hamburg. A few Jewish German families, including Glikl's father started to settle sporadically in the 1630's and 1640's without official permission, trading in gold and jewels, lending money, handcrafting small items, and preserving their insecure status by informal tax payments to the government.
