Juliet’s Lack of Control of Her Fate
Juliet has a lack of control in the play. The reason for this is because, in Elizabethan times, women had little to no choice in anything at all. They couldn’t own homes, choose their husbands or decide what to do with their life at all.
Juliet is an example of a typical woman in 16th Century England with little control. In the play, Juliet is forced by her father to marry the Count, Paris. Her father tells her “For by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee…”…if she refuses to marry the man she is told to. These words from Capulet to Juliet give us a little peek into what 16th Century England was like for women and their limited choices. What he’s practically saying is that if she does not marry Paris, he swears on his soul he’ll disown her. In Elizabethan England, a woman without a man to make decisions for her was in a vulnerable place and was shamed by everybody. Juliet is facing the chance of being ditched from her family. Juliet would have no place in a male-dominated society all by herself and since she is so young, she can’t possibly know how to survive by herself without a man. This struggle brings us insight into a typical woman’s life in Elizabethan England.
The fact that, in the play, Juliet does not even have the power to organise things herself, whether it be because she isn’t allowed to or simply doesn’t know how, it proves that women in Elizabethan England don’t even have enough power to take responsibility for themselves, at least until they are much, much older.