Hence, again, there were far more grandmothers than grandfathers in the family in all mediaeval life.

This led to many cruelties to old women who were deemed "superfluous." While, however, the actual experience of common people made conditions so hard for grandmothers, the idealism within the religious field was favorable to the mother of any age.

The same church fathers who shunned marriage as a cowardly concession to the body, and who wrote flaming animadversions upon women in general, gave the Virgin and Child their adoration and made a place of honor and of comfort to those women who chose the religious vocation outside the home.
=Older Women in Religious Vocations Honored in Middle Ages.=--These women, the Ladies of the Abbeys and the special servitors of the Church, reached the first independent places of distinction which women in Christian civilization attained and to them, at least, age added power and veneration.

Hence, even while they ignored their relationship to common womanhood, they often allayed superstitious cruelty toward other old women.
Whenever any subject class develops within it a genius or a quality of talent or a specialty of activity that gives personal prestige, that class as a whole gains recognition.

The Carlisle Indian who beats at the game of football; the Afric-American artist whose works claim admiration; the representative of the backward nation who shows power of achievement formerly supposed to be the sole accomplishment of the conquering peoples, not only makes a place for himself, he opens the door to wider opportunity for his class.