The Three Phases of Sixteenth-Century Female Rule

This chapter offers an analysis of the narratives described in the previous chapters. First it explains why this approach—the separate description of each dynasty during its women-controlled phase—was chosen. Each narrative has a different story arc: how women reached the centers of power, when their impact reached its highest point, and how it declined. The chapter then goes on to discuss the reasons for the simultaneous rise of so many women to positions of power and offers a series of causes, from the shifting structure of the state and the government to the personal attributes of the women who came to control these states. A further discussion compares what we often refer to as kingdoms of the “Orient” to those of the West, arriving at the conclusion that in the period under discussion the boundaries between East and West were blurred and porous almost to the degree of insignificance, and influences streamed both ways. The next subchapter discusses the three phases of this era that repeat themselves in almost all cases—path-breaking women, those who institutionalized their power, and those who, perhaps by reaching too high, brought it to an end. Finally, an attempt is made to evaluate the kind of rudimentary network that connected these queens to each other and estimate its effects.