Gender In The Elizabethan Period

Question 1

Elizabethan Men

Answer 1

• powerful and privileged
• common for men to visit brothels without much damage to reputation
• syphilis a widespread disease- Laertes warns Ophelia of “contagious blastment’s” that might affect reckless lovers
• might refer to symptoms of disease or corruption of her innocence by men’s sexual desires

Question 2

Elizabethan Women

Answer 2

• Socially, intellectually and physically inferior
• accepted idea since Eve that women are responsible for man’s fall into evil
• must be virgins before marriage
• not socially acceptable for women to have affairs m- if a woman was unfaithful she made a “cuckold” of her husband