During
Elizabethan times, there was an unmarried woman on the throne in England, and
yet the roles of women in society were extremely limited. An example of this
limitation was that only women of nobility were allowed a standard education,
whereas if you were deemed not worthy of this by not being born into nobility,
then you would be destined to stay at home and learn how to run the household.
This would include such skills as cooking, cleaning and sewing.
Those women
considered to be appropriate for a ‘normal’ education, would be given the
knowledge of several languages including Latin, Greek, Italian and French,
however this education would cease when they reached the stage of university as
it didn’t matter how noble the woman was, they would still not be allowed to
attend university and so if they wished to continue their education, they would
have to be taught from home.
A large amount
of restrictions on the life of women were in the field of profession. Women
were not allowed to become lawyers, doctors, politicians or writers as well as
being forbidden to enroll for the army or navy. This could be because in
Elizabethan times, women were seen as untrustworthy and deceitful due to the
wide belief at the time that women’s periods were controlled by the moon and
that their uterus migrated around the body, causing hysterics and lunacy.
The greatest
thing that a woman could do at the time was to become a mother, however due to
the “untrustworthy nature” of women at the time, the fidelity of the woman was
always kept under a high level of scrutiny, as it was impossible to take a test
to determine who the biological father of a child was at the time.
There were
countless other ways in which women were viewed as “the weaker sex” such as the
fact that they were forced to become dependent on male figures and if they
disobeyed them, it was viewed as a crime. It was also forbidden for women to
vote, thus demeaning and objectifying them further.
Men, on the
other hand – lived life as the superior gender. This is because society in the
Elizabethan era was a patriarchal one, a society governed by men. They were
entitled to any position of power, besides the queen of course, and they saw
this level of gender dominance to have been set in place by God and nature.
They were
expected to be the ‘breadwinners’ and furthermore, they were trusted with all
of the important decisions that entailed family life – women were only expected
to obey the decisions and not be a part of making them.
In
Shakespeare’s ‘Much ado About Nothing’, the character of ‘Hero’ is the epitome
of the stereotypical Elizabethan female as she hardly says a word throughout
the play and at some point, her fidelity is questioned due to a case of
mistaken identity. Shakespeare, however – was known to challenge conformity,
already recognized for mocking traditional Petrarchal poetry with Sonnet 130.
He created the character of Beatrice in ‘Much ado’ to challenge the female
stereotypes of the time, making her loquacious and outspoken which would have
been quite shocking for the audience due to the extremities of his incongruence
to the rest of society.
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