HST LECTURE 7 9 19 12 CLASS NOTES Romeo and Juliet is in essence the story of defying your parents Concept marriage is a contract between families not the two people getting married Society is intensely patriarchal Society is dominated by men Within a family the husband father would run all the business affairs money things legal matters education When a woman marries a man she ceases to exist as a legal entity The wife has no legal rights whatsoever all her property clothes jewelry becomes the property of the husband at marriage Husband s control absolute In the Renaissance the family started to play a larger role in life By family we mean extended family and servants Because of the cost of maintaining this family very close attention was paid to marriages Parents arranged marriages the marriages were related to family and business ties These arranged marriages were often worked out years in advance the child was often 2 3 years old Arranged marriages were reinforced by a binding marriage contract The family of the soon to be wife would pay a dowry to the husband s family Dowry what the family gets for their son marrying their daughter Dowry was the only important reason why Henry VII married Catherine of Aragon Bottom line contracts are about money The point of marriage was to make a good match for the family from marriage something that would bring higher social status or lots of money Who you married spoke a lot about your social class and position in society The only space that was a wife s own was when giving birth The wife s role run the household and bear children The more upper class you were the more children you had in a short period of time Upper class wives were often pregnant one woman had 8 children in 10 years Why did this happen Wealthy women employed wet nurses to nurture children This option was not available to lower classes so they had less children Child birth was an extremely dangerous thing Approximately 10 of mothers died during or shortly after childbirth Another problem at least 50 of all children did not reach the age of 20 high infant mortality rates The mortality rate explains why upper class had multiple children they wanted to keep their family name alive The children often had the same name because of the mortality rate Because the two married people are rarely emotionally attached there are many extramarital relationships Extramarital relationships were much more common for males for several reasons It was a patriarchal society males can get away with more than females Wives could be legally punished or executed for having extramarital affairs Crude birth control so cheating wives could get pregnant It is still punishable by death today in some countries to have an affair with the wife of the heir to the throne In 1614 the English King s physician employed an army of large men to travel with the King to make sure he didn t have affair There was often a significant age difference in couples In Florence the difference was 13 years the average age for the woman was 16 18 males in 30s or later This meant there was a large number of unmarried males which led not only to extramarital affairs but also prostitution Prostitution was seen as a vice and morally wrong but was also seen as something that could only be regulated not wiped out in Florence community brothels were established and prostitutes were required to wear distinctive clothing Prostitution in London was primarily run by theatre owners prostitutes known as Winchester s Geese Starting point financial considerations outweigh everything else in marriage In order to get married you needed the consent of your family this was required for social acceptance If you re a peasant working on the land you can t afford for anyone to write a legal contract you may not even be able to afford a church wedding To be legally considered as married as peasants you had several options for the courts Live in the same house and refer to each other as husband as wife Use of the same last name Baptism of children in a church As a peasant how did you get married You can simply take a vow in public You can say you will marry someone in the future but have to have sex later to make it valid The other way is the Romeo and Juliet way the clandestine marriage A clandestine marriage is one performed outside of normal church hours possibly without any witnesses Clandestine marriages could serve many purposes Prevent the young lovers from running off Want to cover up the exact date of the marriage Key points Importance of patriarchal society Propertied classes arranged marriages Contracted marriage clandestine marriage marriage by verbal consent Sexual infidelity commonplace at least amongst males Book emphasizes women are property of men She s in dispute with guy in higher class She wants to marry him Huge court case She was lying the whole time and actually having an affair with another guy Paper notes thesis is your position i e how did this happen answer in thesis