Witchcraft In The Pre-Industrial Era

According to Gaskill, witchcraft is defined as “the practices of a witch or witches, especially the use of magic or sorcery” (1). The gender people typically think of when someone mentions the word “witch” is women. Women have become the image of witchcraft in the pre-industrial era and still wear the façade today. Because of the roles female healers had in the pre-industrial era, their work created relationships and false reputations that made them vulnerable to accusations. Healers would gather natural remedies to help the sick feel better. Therefore, the ability to heal others with no qualifications was considered doing evil practices or magic. Witchcraft became associated with women because people believed they were more susceptible to the demon and evil practices. Gaskill claims, “In most witch-trials, however, misfortunes were no randomly blamed on women who looked like witches but fitted specific patterns of social relations involving conflict and fear between neighbors” (52.) Neighbors often accused other neighbors in the pre-industrial era. Any conflict or fear the evolved between a relationship with a neighbor could lead to opinionated accusations instead of factual ones. Women were often accused by neighbors because of disagreements or false reputations that were placed on them. …show more content…
Most of the clientele of the Criminal Magical Underworld of Paris was women. Women could only attain some privileges through inheritance and is the reason why some of them turned to magic for help. Magic gave women the opportunity to have control over men with charms and magic that could potentially corrupt the social order. Mollenauer states, “The criminal magical underworld promised women the opportunity to defy patriarchal authority by ridding themselves of their husbands and marrying lovers of their own choosing” (91). Men feared that women could sabotage the patriarchal