Elizabethan Society Beliefs & Ideas PDF

**BQ: What were the beliefs and ideas of those in Elizabethan society? -- 1** **([Sources from The British Library)](https://www.bl.uk/teaching-resources/shakespeare-putting-romeo-and-juliet-in-context-a-summary-of-sources)** **Conduct Book for Christian Women** Juan Luis Vives' *Instruction of a...

**BQ: What were the beliefs and ideas of those in Elizabethan society? -- 1** **([Sources from The British Library)](https://www.bl.uk/teaching-resources/shakespeare-putting-romeo-and-juliet-in-context-a-summary-of-sources)** **Conduct Book for Christian Women** Juan Luis Vives' *Instruction of a Christen Woman* was a hugely popular conduct book for Tudor women. Written from a male perspective, it gives moral and practical guidance on all aspects of a woman's life from infancy to puberty and from marriage to widowhood. In some ways, the book seems progressive: for example, it recommends education for women. However, it still foregrounds the **[virtues]** of chastity and obedience to one's parents and husband. This provides an interesting context for strong Shakespearean women like Juliet, Beatrice and Katherina, who seem caught between passion and patriarchal control, and between silence and elegant self-expression.Vives has a bleak view of love -- the dangerous 'kingdome of Venus'. The 'miserable yonge woman' who is entangled by love would be better 'to have broken a legge of \[her\] bodie'. Love causes global devastation: 'murther', 'slaughter', 'distruction of cities, of countreys, and nacions'. When it comes to choosing a husband, maidens should keep quiet, and leave these decisions to their parents: 'it becometh not a maide to talke, where hir father and mother be in communicacion about hir mariage'. But parents should take their duties seriously, preferring 'Good and wise' husbands over the 'Faire', 'riche' or 'noble'.**William Gouge's Domestic Duties Book***Of Domesticall Duties* was a popular and widely read conduct book providing advice and rules for family life. It was written by the Church of England clergyman William Gouge. Gouge's work embraces **[patriarchy]**, placing the husband at the head of the household. He says a wife should show 'obedience' to her husband's authority and 'come when he calls' her. She should refrain from 'ambition' and abandon any idea that 'wives are their husbands equals'. This was not an unusual view for the time, although Gouge did note that when he preached on female **[subservience]** in church he often observed discontented murmurings from the women in his **[congregation]**. **Friendship in George Wither's Emblem Book** 'Emblems' are illustrations that use symbols to represent complex or abstract ideas, such as friendship, virtue, wisdom and mortality. Such images were often collected in emblem books alongside explanatory and instructional verse, the illustration and text working together to provide a moral lesson. The image displayed on the right shows the emblem for 'friendship' -- a pair of clasped hands holding a crowned and flaming heart, circled with linked rings. The Latin tag around the engraving reads 'bona fide', which means 'with good faith'. The **[epigram]** above the engraving describes friendship as 'true love, indeed', and the verses below talk of constancy and generosity in friendship. In the early modern period, same-sex friendship (and particularly male friendship) was held in high esteem and could be described with an intensity and vocabulary that we would nowadays associate with romantic love. There is a blurring of lines here: sometimes same-sex friendships were intense but platonic (i.e. non-sexual); on other occasions, the intimacy of same-sex friendship gave a framework within which same-sex desire could be explored and expressed.