Hair Parting Tool

c. 1300-1315
This hair parting tool shows a man in subservient position to the woman.
Louvre

Connection to Website Themes

Spousal Power Dyanmics: Unusual for the dominance of the woman, this object presents the man in an inferior position to the woman. The woman holds a bird, likely a falcon. While nothing about this object suggests that the couple are married, a married woman might have owned this tool. Possibly as a representation in the ‘world turned upside down’ category, it was intended humorously. Nevertheless, the existence of this object raises questions about the potential for power dynamics to shift between a husband and wife.

Community Social Norms: The upending of patriarchical order appears on a tool primarily intended for a woman’s use, maybe entirely out of sight from male scrutiny. Ivory, an expensive material, made this object one likely owned by an elite woman. Perhaps a female servant used it to style her hair. Thus, this cultural resistence to patriarchical norms would have taken place in spaces less prone to social sanction by those seeking to uphold community social norms about the proper relation between a man and woman in a relationship.

Church and State: Here the woman rules and no state or church authority contests her dominance.

What is Love: This object presents the woman as dominator of the lovesick man. Even if intended as a ‘world turned upside down’ representation, the image nevertheless opens up the possibility that a woman’s power in love can wholly subjugate a man. Backlash to this development in courtly love occurred in misogynist narratives like the Romance of the Rose.