Marriage
It is a fact of life that most women must marry. It is almost impossible for a woman to earn a living on her own, and an unmarried woman is simply a drain on her father’s household (though she does provides some compensation by providing her father with unpaid labor). Women are legally barred from a number of opportunities. In many places, for example, they are barred from any profession that requires literacy. Even when they can work, they generally must work for someone else, and their wages are not enough for survival. About the only profession dominated by women is midwifery.
When she marries, a woman’s family must provide a dowry. As a result, daughters are expensive. The wealthier classes can use them to make alliances, but, even then, only so many are useful. Sons are much preferred. Serf women must have their master’s permission to marry, since, if they leave the village, the lord loses a laborer plus the labor of all of her descendants. Manorial lords usually require a cash payment to allow a female serf to marry outside of the village.
In general, both genders marry fairly late — well into their 20s. Marriage of teenagers is uncommon. The resources required to prepare a dowry or payment to a manorial lord take time to accrue. Married couples are usually of about the same age — the pattern of much older men marrying younger women is not yet the norm in Europe.
The story that lords can have sex with serf women on their wedding night is untrue — it is a fiction invented in the Victorian era.
The church strongly teaches that God loves men and women equally, but the man is the master of the Christian household. Beating one’s wife (or children) is a recognized legal right held by Christian men. Pagan women (at least free ones) enjoy somewhat better status, but not by much. Married Christian women must cover their hair in public, and otherwise be modest, as a sign of respect to their husband.
The primary task of women everywhere is childbirth. This is a messy and dangerous job. Rates of childbirth related deaths are extremely high, meaning women on average live much shorter lives than men. There is also no birth control.
Women of all social classes must endure hard work (Remember, though, at this level of technology, that almost everyone, male or female, is faced with a life of hard work.). Peasant women sometimes work in the fields with their husbands, but also have to handle maintaining the home and vegetable garden. Their days are spent mending and crafting necessary items, cleaning, preparing food, and other mundane chores. Women of the middle class (townswomen) must manage their households, as well as possibly working in their husband’s shop — probably for little or no money. Women of the upper classes similarly have households to run, as well as other tasks (likely sewing). If a freewoman’s husband is in the warrior class, whether knight or viking, she may enjoy some power, as she must manage all of his estates while he is away fighting.