Romeo And Juliet: Traditional Gender Norms In Elizabethan England

Gender Norms in Romeo and Juliet

In Elizabethan England, women were not allowed to act on the stage, so in the play Romeo and Juliet, Juliet was likely played by a young boy, women were viewed as so much less than men that men had to portray them in plays. Nowadays you have women that can play men in plays, such as plays on broadway. Romeo and Juliet set in the 15th century was a play written about two ill-fated lovers that ended in their suicide. In Romeo and Juliet, gender played a substantial role in showing Juliet’s rights regarding her marriage and her general life. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare reveals the beliefs of traditional gender norms in Elizabethan England through Romeo's behavior when he fights with Tybalt to prove himself,

In the article from PMT, they write about violence and how it was seen as manly, “It is clear to see that men had to be aggressive and were associated with violence as it was their role to protect their women,” (Background Information). It was traditional that men were the saviors and the violent people of the population. The men were told and believed that they had to protect their women because women were powerless and fragile. In Romeo is always trying to prove himself through acting as tough as he can. Men believed that they would be the only people that would be able to protect their ladies and children. During Romeo’s fight with Tybalt, he walks over to Juliet and says, “Thy beauty hath made me effeminate And in my temper soft’ned valor’s steel!” Romeo says he had to fight to prove himself to the people around him that he was a real man because since he had gotten with Juliet he had softened and henceforth lost his masculinity according to his morals and what he had been taught to believe. Romeo also believed that he had to prove to Juliet that he was worthy of her love because if Romeo was not masculine he thought that Juliet would not want him. When Romeo uses the word effeminate he is saying that being with Juliet made him womanish. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare shows the historical gender norms through Romeo feeling like he had to become violent to prove