There is some limited evidence to support the view that there was little to no transformation to society in years 1625-88.
Firstly, though the growth of population had reached its peak during the mid-17th century, this growth of the population had been gradually occurring since the country was wiped out by the plague in the 14th century. In addition, one third of the population was poor and though this could be seen as a massive change from prior years, these numbers were similar to the numbers of the poor …show more content…
For example, in the years prior and during 1625-88, women had very few rights and they were under the complete control of their husbands and fathers. The role of women was to look after the household and bring up the children; a woman was rarely expected to give advice to her husband. Overall during the 17th century, there was very little progress to enhance the status of women. Another instance was aristocratic hierarchic structure of society, labourers and poor still at bottom, and gentry and nobility at the top. This means that there was not a lot of transformation in terms of societal structure; one might argue that this means there was no transformation to society in 1625- 88. However, though there was no significant progress made to the enhance the status of women after 1642 opportunities came due to the civil war, women took on the roles men who had gone away to war. Furthermore, labourers who were trained in specific skills could become merchants and professionals, especially those who moved to London and move up in the …show more content…
Previous to 1625, the overall idea of divine right – God given authority- was widely accepted and rarely challenged, as that was viewed as questioning God, this was used as reasoning to rule with absolute power and no parliament, however the divine right monarch -Charles I- was executed in 1649 and this led to a change in thoughts on divine right as society began to challenge those in higher authority. These ideas were further enhanced by political philosopher John Locke, Locke did not believe in absolutism and instead held a very liberal view, at the time, that it was not a necessity to have a one sole leader with all the power but instead that all men were born free and that no one had divine right as everybody was born equal in the eyes of God. He also believed that the confessional state should not have been resurrected and that the role of the government was to protect the basic rights of life and property and if the government passed this boundary then it could be destroyed. On the hand of this political perspective was political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, though Hobbes was not a complete absolutist, he believed that people should have individual freedoms, but they should only have these if a strong leader is in charge. In Hobbes’ book Leviathan he explains that because people are naturally