The Process Of Arranged Marriages

In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.

The second area that saw the littlest change for women in the Renaissance was the expectations that came with their social status. Overall women were deemed to be a lower class in terms of gender, and men often treated them with less respect as a result. Within social classes, stereotypical beliefs regarding women and their role were held. Lower class women were expected to be housewives and take care of everything to do with the house. The expectation of working-class women, however, was slightly different. They were expected to work for their husbands and help them run their business, although they couldn’t partake in any of the work by themselves or outside of the house. However, this different expectation wasn’t necessarily new and was upheld from previous times, supporting this idea of women not receiving a Renaissance in the area of social class. Some women in the elite were able to become slightly more independent from their husbands and gain more responsibility, but the vast majority of women in the Renaissance continued to be used for the sole benefits of the men; as providers of a dowry, homemakers

Allowing a woman to leave a marriage and not be scolded or cast out, let alone getting her dowry back, was unheard of in this time period. Though a woman’s dowry was to her husband, he had no control over spending it; if she died without having children the dowry went back to her family, or if she had children they would share it equally . This was very important in protecting women from men marrying them only to take their dowry and run with it, as well as protect her children. Even having laws “restricting the use of women’s dowries, the bride prices paid for women, and the manner in which divorce can happen all point to the states recognition that women needed some legal protections from male authority” was a vast improvement in the treatment of women .

In the Renaissance period, marriage was far different and much longer process than it is today. Particularly in the Elizabethan era, marriages were frequently arranged so that both families involved would benefit. Marriages would be arranged to bring prestige, honour and wealth to the family. For the upper class, marriage rarely involved love. Courting outside of one’s class was strictly forbidden and punishable by death in some circumstances. Marriage followed a strict set of protocols that signify maturity and coming into one’s own. In this time, dowries often played a large part in the decision to marry. A dowry, is the custom in which involves an interchange of cash, jewels, foods, estates between the father

In the primary source, it talks about women from the upper class who gain prestige and power through widowhood. While lower class women had more freedom in their early life with work and marriage, upper class women were pressured to keep the wealth going throughout generations which led to a great deal of pressure to marry a rich man and benefit from that in any way that they could. The source focuses on a woman named Alessandra, who lived in the years between 1450-1465; married a wealthy merchant, named Matteo Strozzi, who then died of the plague thus leaving her with branches of businesses all across Europe and a sudden new access to these things that her husband previously took charge of. She talked to her sons about their role in the family with political, marital, and economical issues and duties for the family. She talked to her daughters about the men they should strive to marry and the duties they have at home that they should learn and do to

"Upon marriage, woman became the legal wards of their husbands, as they previously had been of their fathers while still unmarried" (Martin, 68). It was common for a father to sell his young daughter into marriage and the young women had no say in her preference of her suitors (Mahaffy, 48). This was done while the girl was in her young teens while the groom was ten to fifteen years older (Martin, WEB2). As the father, or guardian, gave the young girl away he would repeat the phrase that expressed the primary aim of marriage: "I give you this women for the plowing [procreation] of legitimate children" (Martin, WEB2). The woman’s role was primarily in the home. "Households thus depended on women, whose wok permitted the family to economically self-reliant and the male citizens to participate in the public life of the polis" (Martin, WEB2).

Typically marriages were cut short due to the death of a spouse usually an older husband (Dubois, ch.2 p.48). After a woman was widowed [and if she survived her childbearing years], she would receive a dowry of “at least a third of her husband’s property” (Dubois, ch.2 p.50). There were two options for widowed women at this point, the most population option was to get remarried, the other option was to become a feme sole, having this status gave the women some individual rights before law (Dubois). The women who obtained the status of feme sole and exercised their rights could manage their small landholdings, make contracts, and appear in court to reclaim debts as seen through the works of Margret Brent (Dubois, ch.2

Under this strict system, Renaissance marriage became a "system of fair market exchange" (Matchinske 156). The husband was expected to provide economically for his wife. In turn, the wife was obligated to render herself, her chastity, her silence, and her obedience unto her husband. Because of this system of exchange, "marriages of interest became the target of severe censure at the beginning of the century as a form of legalized prostitution" (Massai 71). Fathers exchanged their daughter's virginity for family connections, sons promised security in order to win a wife, and women were transferred from one lord to another.

A high class family in the Renaissance was one where the father had all the power, the mother was mostly depended on the man, and the children were taken care of by anyone but there parents. In the rich families most of the marriages were arranged for them. The gentlemen of a rich family, for example, usually were educated and never had to do any manual work (Lambert). A man had all the power and was the control over the household, while the women had no say whether they were married or not. In the Renaissance, the man supported his wife and children while the wife stayed home and the children were either educated or later went on to work.

Women in the Renaissance During the Renaissance, women upheld very different lifestyles than women today. Though there were many of the same lifestyles, the majority of them were very different. “In the medieval period, few women described women’s lives;” (Marquis), which means that they were most often described by men, making them very different that what women would have said about their lives.

For women in the renaissance period, their duty was to marry, have children, and take care of their household. Although, for couples that were lower class, the marriage

When you think of arranged marriages you will probably have an image of a 16th to 19th century picture going on in your head since that’s when it was really common and normalize back then, but that’s not always the case because even now in modern times arranged marriages are still practiced throughout other places and countries such as India, Japan, and China. Some keep up these old traditions for their religious beliefs and others for their own personal reasons. As we step into modern times though, a new type of forming a relationship has had an uprising for the past decade or so which has come to be known as online dating. Some may feel like online dating is different from arranged marriages and in a way it is but in many ways, online dating and arranged marriages have the same structure just with fewer people involved.

Marriage is a big part of the Chinese culture, there are numerous customs that relate to a man and women being a unit. In a marriage, the union is not only between a husband and wife, but also includes the family. Before a marriage can happen, a proposal meeting is conducted, the bride’s parents than should accept the groom and his family, once that happens a wedding date can be set. Than the groom and his family sends several gifts to the bride’s family, having multiple wives, and marrying family members is prohibited in China, along with arranged marriages. The population in China continues to grow, as result the government only allows Chinese families to have one child. This law is mainly enforced in urban areas, if a couple desire to have

In American culture the view on arranged marriages are not looked at very favorably. This is because we have grown up with the knowledge that when it comes time to marry we will have chosen our spouse of our own free will. The match will be a love match and one that is chosen through our own needs. Young men and women in India grow up with an opposite view on marriage. They know that when it comes time to marry their parents will find them a suitable mate and it will be considered scared and a lifelong commitment (Agence France-Presse.) A total of 74 percent of respondents from across India voted in favour of traditional "arranged" marriages, according to the poll by private television channel NDTV. In the Hindu faith, marriage is

Marriage has been defined in numerous terms by different cultures. The factors that play into creating a successful, happy marriage are viewed differently by people in different cultures. Family arranged marriage has been the tradition in Indian culture. Modernization, globalization, and urbanization have brought about the concept of self-arranged marriage from Western cultures, such as the United States. Despite these efforts, family arranged marriage still outnumbers marriages of love or self-arranged. According to Devika Chawla in her essay on Hindu arranged marriages, 95% of all Hindu marriages in India are still arranged (2007). Nice job of