handmaids

Handmaid is a historical term for a female servant who serves a mistress or household, performing personal and domestic tasks. The word combines hand and maid, signaling service performed at the mistress’s side. In various periods and cultures, handmaids could be responsible for child care, managing other servants, or assisting in daily routines. The role varied widely, and in some contexts the term denoted close, trusted service within a noble or royal household, sometimes intertwined with religious or courtly duties.

In modern popular culture, the term handmaids is closely associated with Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and its adaptations. The book presents a fictional society, the Republic of Gilead, where handmaids are women assigned to high-status households to bear children for the ruling class, due to widespread infertility. The term conveys a specific social class with severely restricted rights, rather than a general occupation.

In the world of Gilead, Handmaids are given new names that reflect possession (for example, Offred, meaning “Of Fred”). They wear distinctive red garments and white headdresses, and they live under strict surveillance. Their primary function is reproduction, carried out through the so-called Ceremony, a ritualized act in which the Commander and his Wife are present. Handmaids are overseen by Aunts, and their status is precarious: disobedience can be punished, and some become involved in resistance networks such as Mayday.

The concept has influenced discussions about reproductive rights and power dynamics in literature and media, highlighting themes of autonomy, oppression, and resistance.