The Unjust Treatment Of Women In Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet
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Growing up as a girl during the Renaissance period proves to be problematic for multiple reasons, such as a mother’s opinion overpowering your own, the unjust treatment of women, or perhaps even the most immense conflict: a never-ending feud between two very powerful families. Verona, a small city in Italy, accommodates the Montagues and the Capulets (two families sworn into a perpetual altercation). Romeo & Juliet opens on the streets of fair Verona, where a fight occurs between Benvolio and Tybalt, two significant characters in the story. Eventually the fight comes to a halt by the threats of the Prince, who swears death upon the families if they ever disturb the peace of Verona again. A few short days later, a depressed, love-stricken Romeo…show more content… A woman from a poorer household would be granted the duties to “set all things in good order within thy house...provide for thy husband and children” (Fitzherbert, A Book of Husbandry). By the same token, a woman whose duties can be thought of as a servant’s would still be considered a servant. For example, during scene 3, Lady Capulet and the Nurse appear to be amid a conversation; the Nurse replies, “For I had then laid wormwood to my dug” (1.3.31). In simpler terms, Nurse merely states that she had breast fed and cared for Juliet since an early age. Both quotations exhibit examples of how a woman would tend to their children during this period in history, but unlike poorer women, Nurse proves to be capable of choosing her position to the Capulets. In the same way that a social class determines the duties of a housewife, marriage dictates a woman’s economic importance. According to The Housewife’s Economic Importance, “the wife’s economic importance assured her a status which was close to that of her husband...the social status of the wife was far higher than that of the unmarried woman” (The Housewife’s