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Notes -
A lot of the women in convents used to be there because they were widows or unmarriageable. It hung on longer in the east- where high status divorcees and widows were expected to become nuns even fairly late in the Russian empire- but becoming a nun was not previously something that required particular religious devotion; it was often a last resort for widows, daughters who refused every suitor, etc.
Isn't it more accurate to say that being a single woman carries a lot less stigma and is much more normalized and thus much fewer women are compelled to become nuns as a consequence?
Western convents got picky about ‘only be here if you want to spend your life in prayer’ before it became socially acceptable for women to live independently; it was a counter-reformation change, which, like most counter reformation changes, was later copied by the east because of the need to actually run their church.
And of course convents in Northern Europe were closed down in the 16th century for obvious reasons.
Obviously, convents did not decline due to the growing social acceptability of being a single woman.
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