The document summarizes the role of women in Elizabethan England in 3 sentences: Women were considered inferior to men and subject to male authority. Marriage was important economically and legally favored men, though abuse was illegal. While motherhood and education varied by social class, women generally had few rights and their primary roles were as wives, mothers, and homemakers with little independence or opportunity outside of those domestic spheres.

1. How the role of women changes
in this period …..

2. Leadership
Even if there was a woman on the throne of England and Queen Elizabeth I
Tudor didn’t have a husband, the Elizabethan society was still
patriarchal. It meant that woman was considered more inferior than
man and he had the leadership on his family. In fact, women were
regarded like “weaker sex” not just in term of phisical strenght but
emotionally too.
In this portrait there’s a woman in the
day of her marriage. Often marriage
was celebrated for economic reasons,
so a wife and a husband didn’t fall in
love.

3. Common and royal wedding
If a man wanted to chastise his wife, he could do
it in this period, because he had the legal
right. Howewer, he had to respect her and he
had to provide for her maintenance and
children support. If he abused his wife he
could be prosecuted or prevented from living
with her. Marriage was seen like the best
condition for men and women, but if a couple
wanted to divorce they could ask the
annulment of it. In this way, then they could
marry again.
It’s important to see like King Henry VIII asked
legal annulment to marry again just two times,
when he married Jane Seymour and Katherine
Parr…but he had SIX wives!!!

4. Links with another culture …
Also in Muslim religion woman is subjected at
the male authority because she is
considered inferior, easily conditioned and
weaker psychologically. She can’t testify in a
trial because her testimony is considered
unreliable and she is obliged to give all her
money at his husband who manages it for her
“wellness”, as it was written in the Koran.
The leadership is of the male.
In Jewish religion a husband is obliged to love
and to respect his wife better than himself
and if he doesn ’t respect this law his wife
can ask the divorce, like is written in the
Talmud, the best Jewish book of Law.

5. Motherhood
Having a chid was considered a great
honor to women, and children were
considered gifts of God. Even if a
father was anxious to have a male
not to lose his wealth for female
dowry, daughters was good
accepted in their families, and they
were seen like a precious gift of
God. Even if a woman gave birth to
a child every two years, babies
died from sickness, so families
weren ’t very big. Rich women had
an expensive gift for their
pregnancies.
In this portrait there is a noble woman
who is pregnant. She wears a
prestigious long dress with pearls and
she has got a pearl necklace.

6. Education
Noble men were incouraged to give a
prestigious education to their
daughters because the power was on
the hands of a woman, Elizabeth, who
was not only intelligent but also highly
educated.
About others women, they were not
allowed to go to university, but they
could be educated at home. Women
couldn ‘t become lawyer or doctors or
politicians, but they worked like
nurses or cooks or also for female
painters. They could write works of
literature, so they translated or they
wrote religious book.
LINKS… the first woman who became
pilot was Amelia Earhart. She died
during a storm while she was piloting
her plane.

7. Theatre
Women couldn’t act in the theatre
because it was considered
dishonorable. For this reason, female
roles were done by young actors.
Also in the old Greek culture young men
acted with masks the female role.

8. Civil rights
Women, during this period, were not
allowed to vote. In fact, also rich men
could express their personal votes!!!
They didn’t inherit their father’s titles
because this passed from father to son
or brother to brother.
However, some women who were daughters
of a noble man became heiresses.
LINKS ….
In England women had the right to vote
in 1928, after hard battles that
suffragettes had done.

9. And … what about single women?
Marriage was sacred in the Elizabethan
period, even if the Queen refused to take a
husband and for this reason she was called
“The Virgin Queen”.
Women who refused to marry could enter in a
convents to become nuns or a Mother
Superior … but this was possible before
Protestant Reformation. With Act of
Supremacy in 1534, convents were closed
so especially poor women had to marry to
eat!
Sometimes people suspected women were
witches, so for these superstitions many
women were burned at the stake.