Elizabethan Women In Hamlet

During the Renaissance women had no voice. They were under the control of their parents before marriage and by their husband after marriage. The responsibility of a married woman was to her husband and children, although occasionally she could run the salon that her husband owned. Gertrude and Ophelia in Shakespeare are portrayed as an Elizabethan woman. Women’s lives were administered by their parents- such as the parents determine who they will marry. “These women were coerced and controlled by the men in their lives.”(Shakespeare.about.com).They had more rights as a single woman than a married woman. “When women married, their personal property rights were taken away and given to the men” (www2.cedacrest.edu). The women had a very insufficient …show more content…
We see that she relies on men from the fact that she married so quickly, which is what her son Hamlet tells her. Hamlet tells his mother “Frailty, thy name is woman!”(Act I, Scene ii). Hamlet is talking about all women, but is aiming it towards his mother, Gertrude. He says this because he is mad about the fact that she married her old husband’s brother, Claudius. He says that the flaw of women is that they are weak. Another way that we see Gertrude relying on other men is when she realizes that Hamlet has gone insane and they need a way to stop it. The first person she turns to is her husband, …show more content…
It was the same thing during the Renaissance. “All women educated or not would never be able to enter the professions, because she was a women” (galegrooup.com). The way Shakespeare portrays the women is the same way they really were treated in the times of the Renaissance. The women in the play were not treated like the men, they had no respect. It was the same by the Renaissance “when a wife died the husband inherited all her lands; if he was to go first she only got one third of his land” (galegroup.com). The women were treated as a lower class than the men