Chapter 5 The Reticence of Female Singers
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Abstract
This chapter addresses an observation made in the prior literature that younger women were reticent about singing in mixed company. Before examining the age profiles and distribution of dates of birth of the various population groups in the data, this chapter considers the possibility that the collections could have been skewed towards older women because they were more likely to contribute Child ballads (named after the collector, Francis James Child), a sought-after type of material. While this does seem to be a possibility, an examination of the contributors in relation to their sources confirms that men were much more prominent as singers outside of the family context. The role of women as domestic servants and as farmservants is discussed, and it is suggested that in practice the domestic, rather than specifically the family, context might be more relevant to understanding in what contexts (young) women felt free to sing unselfconsciously.