As the name of the book suggests the topic is the life of women during Renaissance in the Western Europe. The first part of the book deals with the role of the women in the family. It subdivided into five subparts, each dealing with the separate aspect of the family life: "Mother and Child", "Daughters", "Wives", "Widows", and "Workers". Each section contains some theories about women's role in the family and the enormous amount of sources to support them. The second part of the book is about women in society. The author used secondary studies as well as primary sources. Here we present the brief summary of the main ideas of each section of the book. The author gives her ideas as her understanding of the perception of the people of the Renaissance.

To give birth was an honor and a punishment at the same time. The women had a duty to "produce" many children to insure the survival of some of them. The consequence of that was the high rate of death among infant, children, and women. (King, p.1-6)

The breast feeding was not popular among nobility, so infant of the rich people were given away to the country for wet nursing. (King, p.14-15) That was another cause for the high rate of death among infants. There were exceptions in that practice, which were another extreme: some rich mothers looked after their kids until their adulthood. (King, p.22-23)

During Renaissance (and before) women were categorized differently then men. The categories for women were virginity, widowhood, and matrimony. Men were categorized by profession. (King, p.23)

In general, boys were welcomed and daughters were not. The reason for that was that boys could increase wealth of the family, and girls were going to increase wealth of the other family (dowries). But for upper and middle class families, daughters did have some value: through intermarriages family could have useful connections.

Although wives were companions to their husbands, they were subordinate to them also. But real love did exist. (King, p.37) Nevertheless even if there was love, husband was still in charge of everything. (King, p.38) He could even beat his wife without any legal consequences. (King, p.43) Husband was in charge of all property, but wife's dowry. (King, p.49-50)

Everything in the family life was regulated, even intercourse (King, p.41) and what women should wear (King, p.39).

"No wife could attain the social freedom available to some widows". (King, p.56) Some widows could even govern her husbands property.

Many young childless women had to return to their fathers house. (King, p.58-59) Widows with children usually "invited to remain in the marital household". (King, p.59)

The women were involved into different professions, also their opportunities compare to men were very small. Most women were involved in the textile production (King, p.66), but "... the level at which they were permitted to participate shifted downwards as cloth production became increasingly organized and taken over by male supervisors and workers." (King, p.67)

In the Renaissance Europe daughters were viewed as threat to the family wealth. The only legal way to get rid of unwanted daughters was to send them to monasteries. That phenomenon gave raise to nunnery. But "[t]he history of female monachation is at least in part the history of female imprisonment." (86) The majority of nuns were from wealthy families. But increase in numbers followed by decrease in morale in the convents. Many nunneries were called "non convents but whorehouses and public bordellos." (85)

Not all nuns were prisoners. Some of them chose to dedicate their life to God by taking the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. That path gave them some freedom from the patriarchal world of families, states, and church. Even the Reformation did not change their mind: many nuns refuse to leave their monasteries.

"The most characteristic movement of female communitarian life in the early Renaissance is that of the Beguines." (104) as most of the nuns, Beguines came from the wealthy families. The official church opposed the female movements and insisted on the "male direction of female religious life". (110) Renaissance women were also involved in different heretical groups.

"Women engaged in the pilgrimage of the spirit with great earnestness in the Renaissance centuries." (117) Jesus was viewed as a father, husband, or son. "Physical, even erotic, encounters with Christ" (120) were reported during that time. But all those spiritual and mystical experiences were accompanied by masochistic behavior. Women starved themselves to death, mutilated their bodies, and did other dangerous to their health things. This gave some "authority in the public realm" (126) to some holy women. That also caused to increase the proportion of the females among sainted. "This age of commercial aggression and mental strife was an age of female sanctity.," (130)

"Would-be saints determinedly fled their fathers, husbands, and suitors." (131) "The leitmotif of the flight from marriage and family is encountered in Italy as well as the North." (132) Also the demographic factors (great numbers of "unmarried, widowed, or unmanageable women women" (135)) can be an explanation for the large number of nuns during Renaissance.

Reformation change views on the family life: marriage was the only right path for women. But it also limited choices. Women were "secondary citizens" within their families. Public life of women was opposed by Protestants and Catholics, but Protestants opposed the monastic life as well, which gave some freedom to women in Catholic world.

Witch-hunt caused about 60,000 deaths, majority of them were among women, and is comparable to the Holocaust in methods and selection of victims (Jews in the Holocaust and women in witch-hunt). The prosecutions and methods were the same in the Catholic and Protestant countries (with exception of England, where tortures were illegal). The punishment was the burning in the church courts and the hanging in the secular courts.