The presence of gender roles in Renaissance Italy had negative effects on women’s marriages. Marriage, in most cases, in Renaissance Italy was similar to a business transaction, and broken marriages weren’t uncommon. The bride’s family would give her hand in marriage to a man in return for objects, in most cases, money. Women in their late teens married men who were in their early thirties to preserve chastity, which limited the women because the life expectancy for men during this time period was thirty-seven years old. Roughly seven percent of women never married. People looked down on women who did not marry. They lived with male relatives, joined convents as nuns, or became prostitutes. Constraints prevented women from marrying
