Help with marriage,love and society in elizabethan times?

Question

i am studying romeo and Juliet and we have been given a historical content worksheet...i have answered most question but these are remaining...can anone help me find the answers plz

1) Who would arrange the marriage of a female and a suitor?

2) How would Elizabethan society view a young female wooing (romancing) a lover?

Answer 1

Since the context is R & J, I shall limit my answer to the upper class, though some of the points also apply lower down the scale.

The young people would normally marry as their parents chose. A young man was merchandise, to be sold off for cash in the form of a dowry, so increasing the family's wealth. In principle the couple had the right of refusal, but in practice it was hard to say no. The girl, in exchange for her money, tried to get the most socially advantageous marriage possible. One father wrote a humorous poem about his infant daughter, wondering whether she would attract a duke, earl, or baron - ending with the couplet

...If her fortune's all beshite

...She will marry but a knight.

That was the norm - to trade cash (sometimes earned in lowly trade!) for social climbing and political influence.

Affairs did of course happen - John Donne, for instance, got into trouble for bedding (and later marrying) the 13-y-o niece of his employer. Walter Raleigh also seduced and married one of the queen's ladies in waiting and likewise blotted his copybook. Since marriage was a business deal, those who allowed falling in love to spoil the prospects were little better than crooks, and (like Donne) could be imprisoned for it.

Hope this helps. More - much more - available if needed; drop me an e-mail if this isn't enough.