Gender Roles Ryan Cross
How were men and women treated differently during the Elizabethan Era?
In the book "Women in the Renaissance," by Karen Raber, "The male principle, active, formative, and perfect, and the female, passive, material, and deprived," (Hickerson 67). Women played several roles in society based on their age, while men played several roles depending on their social position and occupation.
Who looked after the women during the Elizabethan Era? Why did they do this?
The majority lived under the governance of their husbands, fathers, and, in the case of women who entered covenants, the Church, (Bucholz 1). As a patriarchal model developed for the family, where identity depended primarily on descent through the male line (the agnatic lineage), and where property descended almost entirely to male heirs, the main purpose daughters served was as brides, to link two lineages, (King 318).
What types of jobs could women have? What types of jobs women couldn't of had?
For a variety of reasons, however, during the 15th and 16th centuries a number of elite women were able to gain not only personal but also political power, usually through their positions as daughters, wives, or mothers, (Bucholz 2). All women learned sewing and needlework,... something was no equivalent to boys, (Raber 143). Male roles were in contrast, generally defined by social position or occupation- merchant, knight, priest, peasant, barrel maker, weaver, and so on, (King 317).
Rights women have today compared to back in the Elizabethan Era?
In addition to preserving their virginity, daughters were required to master the skills they were later expected to perform as wives and household managers, (King 318). When a woman of the propertied classes married, she was also expected to bring to her new husbands household that portion of her father's wealth that was to be, in most regions of Europe, her whole claim of her inheritance, (King 318). Single women learned such textile crafts as weaving in order to prepare themselves to become household managers, (King 319).
Multimedia Citation
Shmexyterry. "Rights Of Women During Shakespearean Times." YouTube. YouTube, 10 July 2015. Web. 07 Mar. 2017.
Works Cited
Gant, Amy, and Carole Levin. "Power, Politics, and Women in the Renaissance." World History: The Modern Era, ABC-CLIO, 2017, worldhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1296305. Accessed 7 Mar. 2017.
Grendler, Paul Frederick. Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1999. Print.
Raber, Karen. Cultural History of Women in the Renaissance. Place of Publication Not Identified: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Print.