Aleyka Ramirez

Ms. Abraham

Romeo and Juliet

The Elizabethan Era took place during 1558-1603.

The term, Elizabethan Era refers
to the English history of Queen Elizabeth Is reign (15581603). 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 Englands 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 womans 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 dont 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 werent witches causing the executions of
many women causing the population of the community to go down.
Romeo and Juliets community affected the choices they made. In my opinion, the
rivalries between their families pressured them into their quick marriage because they
both couldve 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 Juliets 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.