Marriage and Family in Shakespeare’s England
Queen Elizabeth I was unusual in many regards. For example, she was one of a handful of English monarchs who never married. When pressed on the matter, she would answer that she was wedded to England. Her predicament was understandable. Even as a monarch, she would have been expected to submit to an arranged marriage, a practice that dated back to the Anglo-Saxons. In fact, arranged marriages were routine throughout the Elizabethan era, which ran from to
Elizabethan WeddingsBy: Sidney H. and Kendall P. Dating for everyone is here: ❤❤❤ ❤❤❤ is the amount of goods and money the bride brings to the marriageMarriage Customs; 5.
Why do so many of his tragic plays involve injuries and betrayals committed between parents and children, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers? How do these plays respond to changes in the understanding and organization of the family during the English Renaissance? Historians such as Lawrence Stone have identified the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries as a crucial period in the history of the family in Britain.
At the beginning of this period, most marriages were arranged, not by the two people getting married, but by their parents and other relatives. The primary purpose of marriage, especially among the upper class, was to transfer property and forge alliances between extended family networks, or kin groups. A marriage might provide a way of combining adjacent estates or of concluding a peace treaty. Gradually, during these centuries, these understandings of marriage and family changed.