Treatment of Women in Society in a Midsummer Nights Dream
Treatment of Women in a Midsummer Night’s Dream
The general treatment of women in ancient times such as the Elizabethan and the Ancient Greek era varied in great degrees from the treatment of women in the contemporary twenty-first century. In more ancient eras, women were generally viewed as men’s property and not as individual human beings. Women were not even allowed to choose their spouse. It was common that this type of arrangement was made by their family, and the determining factors were usually age, social status and wealth. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Hermia jeopardizes the future of her entire family with the refusal of marriage to Demetrius and also goes drastically against the ruling society of her time. It was unthinkable for a woman to make such a choice by herself, especially for such a trivial reason as love. Yet Queen Elizabeth’s refusal to marriage lead to the “acceptance” of certain things; thus in the end, Hermia becomes married to the man of her choice instead of the man her family chose). In Act I, Scene I Theseus tells Hermia to treat her father as a God:
“Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him; And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius” (Shakespeare, 4).
In this paragraph Egeus expresses a sense of ownership towards his daughter, which is an accurate portrayal of the general attitude towards females during that time period. In the play Theseus gives Hermia three options. She can die, go into a nunnery, or she can marry Demetrius. This scene represents the basic treatment of women up until this era. Women were not given a variety of choices, since no sane human being would choose death, women were given two choices: They either had to become a nun or spend the remainder of their life with a man that had been chosen for them. Even if this meant an abusive relationship that could continue on for
The general treatment of women in ancient times such as the Elizabethan and the Ancient Greek era varied in great degrees from the treatment of women in the contemporary twenty-first century. In more ancient eras, women were generally viewed as men’s property and not as individual human beings. Women were not even allowed to choose their spouse. It was common that this type of arrangement was made by their family, and the determining factors were usually age, social status and wealth. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream Hermia jeopardizes the future of her entire family with the refusal of marriage to Demetrius and also goes drastically against the ruling society of her time. It was unthinkable for a woman to make such a choice by herself, especially for such a trivial reason as love. Yet Queen Elizabeth’s refusal to marriage lead to the “acceptance” of certain things; thus in the end, Hermia becomes married to the man of her choice instead of the man her family chose). In Act I, Scene I Theseus tells Hermia to treat her father as a God:
“Scornful Lysander, true, he hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him; And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius” (Shakespeare, 4).
In this paragraph Egeus expresses a sense of ownership towards his daughter, which is an accurate portrayal of the general attitude towards females during that time period. In the play Theseus gives Hermia three options. She can die, go into a nunnery, or she can marry Demetrius. This scene represents the basic treatment of women up until this era. Women were not given a variety of choices, since no sane human being would choose death, women were given two choices: They either had to become a nun or spend the remainder of their life with a man that had been chosen for them. Even if this meant an abusive relationship that could continue on for