The Daily Life of an Elizabethan Woman

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The Daily Life of an Elizabethan Woman
Every decade brings new rights and opportunities for women. Specifically, in the Elizabethan era between 1558 and 1603, women were given little freedom due to the common idea that they were weak and needed a man to care for them (Thomas). Imagine you are an Elizabethan woman in 1560; you are in an arranged marriage with two children, a boy and a girl. Your daughter is growing up to become a mother and devoted wife just as you did while your son attends school to become anything he desires whether it be a doctor or even a lawyer. As time grew on, society discovered the true potential of women, and today, women play a large role in politics and in everyday life, but they still carry the stereotypical role as homemaker and mother. Elizabethan England was a male dominated society ruled by a powerful woman, Queen Elizabeth I. She made powerful decisions, such as establishing the English Protestant Church, while most other women made little to no decisions in their life. Besides being a mother and wife, English drama and poetry was an outlet for their restrained social life. Women had a strenuous everyday life due to their few rights, arranged marriages, and inferiority in politics, education, and their occupation.
From the beginning of this era, men had access to greater rights and opportunities than women. It became normal that women were not allowed vote or inherit their father’s title, as the next man in the family would whether it be his son, or brother. They were also not allowed to act in theatre, enter the professions, or receive an education (Thomas). Society felt that women were weak and couldn’t handle the tasks of a man. Due to this, women had to obey all male relatives whether it wa...

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...ntroduction to Elizabethan Courtship." Elizabethan Women and the Poetry of Courtship. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge UP, 1998. 4-14. Print.
Benson Sonia G. and Jennifer York Stock."Daily Life in the Elizabethan Era." Elizabethan World Reference Library. Ed, Vol. 1: Almanac. Detroit: UXL, (2007): 181-194. Gale Virtual. Reference Library. Web. 18 Apr. 2014.
Daniell, Christopher. "The Spanish Armada." A Traveller's History of England. New York: Interlink, 1991. 109. Print.
Hilliam, Paul. "CHOOSING TO STAY SINGLE." Elizabeth I: Queen of England's Golden Age. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 2005. 38. Print.
Papp, Joseph, and Elizabeth Kirkland. "The Status of Women in Shakespeare's Time." EXPLORING Shakespeare. Detroit: Gale, (2003). Student Resources in Context. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.
Thomas, Heather. "ELIZABETHAN WOMEN." Elizabethan Women. N.p., 1998. Web. 16 Apr.
2014.

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