Aleyka Ramirez

Ms. Abraham  

Romeo and Juliet

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The Elizabethan Era took place during 1558-1603. ​

The term, “Elizabethan Era” refers

to the English history of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign (1558–1603). The era is most famous

for theatre, for William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that we still

read and watch today. It was also an age of exploration and expansion abroad to

establish colonies under English rule across the globe, including in The New World, to

further England’s empire. The Elizabethan Era was also a time that many things like

arranged marriage, religion, social class ranks, and the significance of women were

distinguished. Especially for the women in this Elizabethan Era.

During the Elizabethan Era, women did not have the same equal rights as they did

today. Women in this era were seen as weak and fragile so they were given specific

roles to do and rules to follow. For example, the women in this era, when they were

going to be in a marriage they had to bring a dowry. A dowry was either an amount of

money, goods, property, etc. This was referred to as the women's in the marriage.

Soon after marriage, the women were expected to obey any male in the family

including any fathers, brothers, uncles, etc. and if they did not obey the males, the

women would get a beating because disobeying men was seen as a sin to their

religion, have many babies due to the fact that many people did not live as long and

that a woman’s beauty would not last for long, run households, were supposed to

dress a specific way with white make-up on their faces and dresses with many and
different layers, etc. The way these women were dressed were assigned by the

Sumptuary Laws. If the women were wealthy they would have education, learning

how to dance and play music was necessary to learn, they were taught in Greek,

Italian, French, and Latin. If the women were poor they were allowed to attend school,

did not have a formal education, and were mainly taught the basics of the rest of their

lives since they don’t have money which were how to govern a household and how to

be a proper housewife. And if the women were single, they spent their time in a

nunnery and when monasteries were gone the only place for them was domestic

service.

The people in the Elizabethan Era were affected by the roles and the status that the

women had during that time period. For example, many of the men (the men held the

most power and wisdom back then) believed that women had no soul and were

witches and took part in doing witchcraft. When anything bad had happened like a

bad harvest, people and animals were dying, and disease spread the people blamed

this events of the witches. Without the proper education provided for the women,

women were never able to say that they weren’t witches causing the executions of

many women causing the population of the community to go down.

Romeo and Juliet’s community affected the choices they made. In my opinion, the

rivalries between their families pressured them into their quick marriage because they

both could’ve felt that they needed an escape of the feeling that they both were taught

who to hate and not to hate. So they got married wanting to only belong to each other

not their families.

 Like Romeo and Juliet’s community, my community has affected who I am and the

decisions that I make. Growing up, I was raised in the South Side and in the suburbs.

This different communities influence the decisions that I make because being in the

suburban area I learned how to be more polite with people, with the houses not being

right next to each other and having more space I can be out in the open with myself

around people that I am comfortable with, and with having more space to myself and

being more secluded from other people I prefer to be alone than in place full of

people. Growing up in the South Side, I learned to be more aware and careful of my

surroundings and be more easy going with people.