In Shakespeare’s time, daughters of respectable families, like Juliet, could expect their fathers to have a significant involvement in choosing their future husband.

Previous studies have revealed two patterns between gender and susceptibility to peer pressure: (1) 46% of the reviewed studies showed more male sensitivity to peer pressure in the context of risk-taking; and (2) 46% showed no gender difference.

Mothers unconsciously allow more latitude to sons, and open encouragement, and with daughters they treat them as they would treat themselves. As though they’re teaching them to still their pain or their own distress.

Fathers tried to marry their daughters off to acquire more land, titles and increase social status, but they also had to provide a dowry for their daughter. A dowry could include anything from money to land, and the larger the dowry the more desirable the girl was to her future husband and his family.

Away from the luxury of the monarchy in the Elizabethan era, life for ordinary people was often hard and the number of poor people increased during Elizabeth’s reign. Unlike now, there was no welfare system or support for anyone who fell on hard times.

In many ways, children living in this time were simply treated as small adults. In lower classes or agricultural families, children were given jobs and household chores around the time they could walk by themselves—usually two or three years old. This was not unusual even within the monarchy or aristocratic classes.

Parents and children Most Elizabethan women looked after their children and it was only in the wealthiest families that people used wet nurses (a woman who would breast feed and care for someone else’s child) to care for their children. Children whose parents had money might be sent to school from the age of seven.

Elizabethan era

Honour Family honour was important to the Elizabethans. Most Elizabethans believed in the ideas of fate and astrology; rich people often paid for horoscopes for their children, and before major decisions such as marriage or travel, one would often consult an astrologer to see if the stars favoured it.

In the Elizabethan era people strongly believed in superstition, fate, destiny and the wheel of fortune. People believed they had no influence in their life as everything was already planned out. It was believed that one’s fate was determined by the stars and God had planned your destiny before hand.

Some Elizabethans were strong supporters of the Protestant reformation, some were staunchly Catholic, some were ambivalent, and some still practiced a stricter form of Christianity, Puritanism.

In 1532, he wanted to have his marriage to his wife, Catherine of Aragon, annulled. When Pope Clement VII refused to consent to the annulment, Henry VIII decided to separate the entire country of England from the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope had no more authority over the people of England.

Elizabeth’s tolerant approach seemed to have worked on the whole, but it did not keep everyone happy and she faced numerous threats. Opposition came not only from Catholics, but also from more extreme Protestants, known as Puritans , who objected to any compromise with Catholic ideas.