Deviance In The Elizabethan Era

Social deviance is defined in sociology as “a violation of contextual, cultural, or social norms”. These norms can be formal laws that have severe punishments if broken, or they can be as implied and as unofficial as saying “please” and “thank you”. Social norms are always changing depending on the social environment and time period. For example, conservative Muslim women are not allowed to go anywhere without a man with her; for non or more liberal Muslims, this rule may seem unjustified and obsolete, while conservative Muslims deem it morally right and necessary. One particular social norm of the past that has always fascinated me was the application of lead and mercury-based face-whitening cosmetics during the Elizabethan Era in Great Britain.

The general strain theory, by Robert K. Merton, explains this strange occurrence. This theory “explains deviant behavior as an inevitable outcome of the strain individuals experience when society does not provide adequate and approved means to achieve culturally valued goals.” According to strain theory, here are five ways people deal with societal pressures: usually people conform to a society’s customs and laws and achieve their goals legally; other times, one will put on the guise of conforming while participating in deviant activity behind closed doors. There are those who abide by social norms and laws, but are indifferent to whether or not they achieve the ideal life praised by their society. Some people find they cannot accept the rules of a society at all; they either give up on the idea that life has any value, living recklessly and participating in dangerous illegal activity like drug and alcohol abuse; or they break off from the society altogether and create a new one of their own, with a different structure. I think many people from the lower class deal with strain the third way: they could not be bothered by trying to live up to society’s expectation because a lot of them are just trying to live. High class citizens may be more apt to live recklessly because they think they are above the law; the best example of someone creating a new society because of a dissatisfaction with a previous society’s rules is when Henry VIII of England broke off from the Roman Catholic Church and created the Anglican Church because Catholicism would not allow him to divorce his