Question

What do the expectations for Marie Martin (after she became a widow) and for the girls who attended school tell us about the role of women at that time?

Answer 1

Answer:

She wanted to give an educational opportunity to Quebec girls, indigenous and settler daughters by opening various schools and convents dedicated exclusively to the education of girls.

Explanation:

Marie Guyart was born into a family of bakers with deep Christian roots. At the age of 17 she married Claude Martin, a silk worker, with whom she had a son of the same name whom she would later profess in the Benedictines. She was a widow when she was very young but did not decide to remarry. She felt the call to religious vocation and tried to enter the Carmelites or the Feuillants, but it was not until 1631 that she was accepted in the monastery of the Ursulines of Tours, of the congregation of Bordeaux. There it took the name of Marie de l'Incarnation.

In this monastery he had contact with Jesuit missionaries assigned to Canada. He opened the first Ursuline monastery in Canada, in Quebec, for the care of a school for indigenous girls. Before the Ursulines there were only schools for boys in New France. The Ursulines established convents and schools for girls taught reading, writing, arithmetic and homemaking. It was expected that graduates would become nuns or wives or mothers.