Preview

Women During The Renaissance

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
513 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Women During The Renaissance
The Renaissance was a time of rebirth, where literature and art seemed to take center stage and the belief in human potential dominated all parts of the 15th century. Despite these advancements, women remained in a state of subjugation. Women were given no say in who they married, they were expected to birth their husbands children and dedicate their lives to becoming housewives and pleasing their husbands. Women were confined to household duties. They were given no political rights and were limited in their access to education. The Renaissance made no significant progress towards women's equality.
“Renaissance children who survived found their lives governed by parentage and by gender”(327) Being born a woman was already a disadvantage since families preferred sons. A son could carry on the family legacy while a girl was seen as a financial burden because the father would be required to pay a dowry when she married. “ Male heads of households were the source of all power in their domicile, in their shops and in their state.” Boys were expected and prepared to become involved in politics and to inherit the family business, whereas women were simply expected to prepare for marriage and remain pure. Women were expected to remain pure for their husbands and to be modest in the way they dressed and carried themselves. “A woman worthy of praise must show first of all in her conduct, modesty, …show more content…
Women were still expected to fulfill their duties as housewives and were not given access to education or political rights that their husbands enjoyed. Every aspect of a woman's life was determined by her father's decisions and the economic status that she was born into. Life for women during the renaissance was difficult, it is clear that women were not considered equal to their male counterparts and did not enjoy the same freedoms or rights as they
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    19th Century and Study
    • 2308 Words
    • 10 Pages

    19th Century and Study

    2003B (#3): To what extent and in what ways did women participate in the Renaissance?…

    • 2308 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Ch. 13 Free Response Questions
    • 1979 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Ch. 13 Free Response Questions

    In the period from about 1300 to 1600, middle and working class woman typically married and over sought the domestic responsibilities of the home. However, they also frequently worked outside the home. The women of the middle/working class performed a wide variety of jobs including: the construction of ships’ sails, midwives, maids, cooks, laundresses, and household servants. Furthermore, women were heavily involved in the Florentine textile industry, weaving cloth and reeling and winding silk. Women ran the ferry service across the Rhone River at Lyons as well as assisted their father and husbands in agricultural tasks. Widowed women would even run their husbands’ establishments. While women of the middle and working classes experienced the benefits of Renaissance humanism, women of the upper class status saw a decline in status. When considering the types of jobs they performed, their access to property and political power, and their role in shaping the outlook of their society, the women of the Renaissance ruling classes typically had less power than women of the feudal age. As mentioned previously, well-to-do girls generally receive an education similar to that of the boys. However, because men held the view that woman’s attention should be focused on the domestic affairs of family life, the women of the time could not use their education to its fullest. This attitude of women’s role being…

    • 1979 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Market Revolution Dbq
    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Market Revolution Dbq

    Their main roles in the household included: raising patriotic children, cleaning, cooking, and obeying their husband's or father's orders. Women had no control over their lives and duties. Their lives were dictated by the rule of men around them. In other words, women had almost no rights. At the time, they didn’t have the right to vote or patriciate in juries. Their opinions and feelings were not incorporated in the laws and regulations of the nation. Women's rights were so limited that many didn't even go outside their own homes without their husband. Life and the world outside their home was unknown to women. On the other hand, men worked in the…

    • 525 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Women Renaissance FRQ
    • 615 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Women Renaissance FRQ

    Perhaps the most obvious and significant obstacle to women’s participation in the renaissance was the social norms of the times regarding women’s roles which we know were limited mostly to being a mother and producing offspring, particularly if the women was a member of the upper class as we know from Leon Alberti’s “On the Family”. Women married extremely young and were expected to begin producing issue almost immediately after their marriage. They might be in charge of teaching their daughter ‘womanly’ skills but even that might be relegated to a nurse. Often times women were involved in finding a suitable husband for their daughters but almost certainly never had the final say. Another key factor in the limitations of a women’s renaissance was the ideas perpetuated by the Church. The Church doctrine suggested that it would be improper for women to have strong personal ideas. Thus the influence of the Church contributed to the lack of women in the renaissance.…

    • 615 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Tempel Anneke Was Accused Of Witchcraft In The 17th Century
    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Tempel Anneke Was Accused Of Witchcraft In The 17th Century

    Men were the workers, bread winners, property owners, decision makers, and kings in their families and in society. Everyone worked beneath them. They went out to work each day and expected that when they returned, the women within their families would provide the proper necessities of life: food, a clean house, and take care of the children. A woman on the other hand was expected to provide these necessities and often she also provided work outside the home, she may have even work alongside her husband too. When she finished that job, it was expected that she would attend to her home duties, these included, providing care for her husband and family and never to complain.…

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Women's Role In The Renaissance
    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Women's Role In The Renaissance

    The Renaissance is seen as a period of enlightenment and disocoveries. This is true, but it only applied to men. Women in this time period were seen as objects. This was because they were subjected to the mistakes Eve, the first female, made. She fell to temptation and in result, influenced Adam. They were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and forced to live a life of mortality. Because of Eve’s mistake, women in the Renaissance were kept hidden away, only to be used as a means of procreation. They weren’t allowed to grow develop their minds or talents. As the humanist scholar Marsilio Ficino said, "Women should be used like chamber pots: hidden away once a man has pissed in them." A woman’s presence in the Renaissance was seen in the children she had, but nothing more.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Gender Inequality In The Renaissance
    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page

    Gender Inequality In The Renaissance

    The English Renaissance lasted predominantly through the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. Its influence was felt in many of the arts. Exploring or acknowledging sexuality was deemed negative due to gender expectations. “Traditionally, women were told to obey their fathers and then their husbands; to be virgins and then chaste wives; to prefer silence to speech and self-expression” (Carole Levin et al., 2000, p.15). The role of women in the renaissance was patriarchal in nature and their roles were secondary to men’s. Even putting class aside, women were expected to take on the traditional role of wife and fulfil the role that the concept of marriage gave them. Education for women was limited and gender inequality was what caused the…

    • 194 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Frq2
    • 345 Words
    • 1 Page

    Frq2

    The average woman during the Renaissance was one who lived at home and essentially ran the household. While women still did work during this period, they never ran their own business or went seeking for jobs outside of the home. The typical working woman during the Renaissance worked at home for their husband’s business or otherwise typically did house work. Women had a tremendous and also very demanding at home role, taking care of an array of tasks such as cooking, trading, and even being a teacher. Women had to prepare three meals a day for their families, while still taking care of children at home. Generally, poorer children did not leave home and would receive a slight education, if it was even possible, from their mothers and then go on the work at home. Women from agricultural families often had the responsibility of taking excess yields to the market to be traded. Poorer women during the Renaissance needed to be very well rounded and had to take care of a variety of everyday tasks.…

    • 345 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    African American Women In The 19th Century
    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages

    African American Women In The 19th Century

    They had only a little bit of legal, social, and political rights that women nowadays take for granted”. (Enotes.com 1) Women back then couldn’t vote or even have any property after their marriages. They couldn’t even take possession of their own kids if they got divorced. they couldn’t even get an education like the men could get. “Men were the primary “breadwinners” and the women were just expected to stay at home to raise children, to clean, to cook, and also provide a safe haven for returning husbands”.…

    • 994 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Women's Rights In The 1800s
    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Women's Rights In The 1800s

    Women were not allowed to own property. Therefore, they could not vote. Most women were denied education. Once married women were “compelled to promise obedience to her husband”. As her husband, he would also be her master.…

    • 631 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Humanism In The Renaissance
    • 1354 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Humanism In The Renaissance

    The individuals that often suffered the most from social injustices were women. The ideal woman of this time, according to scholars such as Christine de Pizan, and Castiglione, was often regarded as one that was well educated, well versed in the classics, able to dance, compose music, and be elegant in nature; however, they were barred from seeking fame, fortune, and were disallowed to take part in public life. For the most part, women contributed little to nothing towards political, economic, and social influences. “Scholarship, like most public activities of this time, was considered a man’s field during the Renaissance and the centuries that preceded it” (Zophy 76). “Indeed, only 186 European laywomen have been identified as book owners during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries” (Zophy 76). Only women that belonged to the elite were allowed to engage in such activities, and even then, it was quite rare; if you were a laywoman, then your options were ever more limited; it was either marriage or the cloister, and even with this, they were still harshly oppressed by men. To be a woman of the renaissance, meant a life full of rough and jagged paths; it was a life full of many quarrels and obstacles to be traversed in order to make a name for…

    • 1354 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Arguments Against Women's Suffrage
    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Arguments Against Women's Suffrage

    Poorer women had to manage families and work in factories at the same time to make ends meet. With the gender roles present, women would be expected to manage the household without any help regardless of whether they also had jobs or outside affairs, since the participation in those activities in addition to the duties she was expected to fulfill would be seen as a choice. Having these…

    • 1678 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How Did The Reformation Change The Role Of Women
    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Did The Reformation Change The Role Of Women

    Over the expansion of time between 16th Century Reformation and the 18th Century Enlightenment, the role of a woman was greatly discussed. The Reformation was led to a desire in seeking changes. The age of Enlightenment prompted looking at things under a different light. It was the ideas of the Reformation and the Enlightenment that led to a desire for classification and roles for each person in society over this expansion of time. Women were never recognized as equals to men by the majority of society. The specific details of a woman's role entailed did change slightly between the Enlightenment and Reformation; women were granted some new abilities such as more education and ability to divorce their husbands but limited in how they could work and live in society while being considered subordinate to man.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    21st Century Feminism In 17th Century Italy
    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages

    21st Century Feminism In 17th Century Italy

    Feminism in the 21st century has two major points. First, all humans are equal in all aspects of life, including politics. Second, a woman does not have any limitations to what she can or cannot do purely because she is a woman. This definition of feminism cannot be applied to 17th century Italy, as even most women during that time would agree that it would be ridiculous to expect that women would be granted the same rights as men. Therefore, feminism during this time was the idea that a woman had some degree of agency that she could execute to gain control over the outcome of a situation.…

    • 1673 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    African American Civil Rights Movement
    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages

    African American Civil Rights Movement

    Women had no legal rights to their husband’s property and were not even expected to manage their own property. If a woman was to work instead of be a homemaker, she would become a teacher, nurse, or secretary and even then their pay was nowhere equal to what a man…

    • 1929 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More