Relationships
English Lit: AQA GCSE Romeo & Juliet, topic 1.1.2
Relationships and Marriage
During the Elizabethan era, people thought about love and relationships differently from how we do today.
Arranged marriages
- Generally, parents arranged marriages in the Jacobean era.
- Children did not always have the freedom to choose who they would spend their lives with, who they would marry, or who they would have children with.
Marriage age
- People got married at much younger ages than they do nowadays – girls could get married at 12 years old and could have children soon afterwards.
Parents and children
- Adults chaperoned (accompanied and supervised) children at all times.
Family Relationships
Many Shakespearean plays show conflict between parents and children. This is what family dynamics were like when Shakespeare was writing:
Fathers
- Fathers were the undisputed (not questioned) head of the household. All family members had to do as their father (or husband) said.
Women
- Women had no rights or authority in the many laws.
- Women could not own property or money.
Children
- Children were seen as their father’s property. Fathers could marry their children off to any partner they thought suitable.
- Fathers often chose partners for political or financial reasons, or to make sure that the family retained (kept) its wealth.
- It was not unusual for fathers to promise their children in marriage at a young age, or for children to marry at a young age.
Nurses
- In upper-class families, ‘nurses’ often raised children. Nurses were women who breastfed the children and raised them from babies to adolescents.
- This meant that these children often didn't have strong bonds with their own parents.
Betraying family
- People in the Jacobean era generally thought that going against your family was like betraying God.
Test yourself on Relationships
At what age could girls get married in Elizabethan times?
Which of these are true of women in Elizabethan England?
Why did fathers in Shakespeare’s time often choose marriage partners for their children?
How was betraying your family viewed in Elizabethan times?