Women In The Italian Renaissance

What was the representation of women back in the Italian Renaissance era? It is preposterous as to how little to no freedom a woman was given compared to now. Women in this era were looked at as inferior to males and had many restricted rights. Their role in society back then was mainly to be in charge of taking care of the house, and bearing a lot of children. The term renaissance means “rebirth”, it has been questioned by the historian Joan Kelly as to whether women even had a renaissance like men did because they are so overlooked when it comes to studying the Italian Renaissance. Many women poets (i.e. Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara), took advantage of their writing skills and expressed how they felt about their freedom and rights,
Marriage back in the Renaissance times was mainly based upon economic status along with the continuation of the family line. Women were continuously pregnant from adolescence until their forties, and were supposed to produce healthy male heirs. They were encouraged to give birth to males because a daughter can be too expensive to raise because the family would then need to provide a dowry for her future husband. Due to the fact that women were looked as inferior to men, when a woman becomes married all her dowry (money and household objects from the woman’s family) goes to her new husband and she then becomes his own property. The wedding ceremony for a couple of the upper class was a very public event that could last for several days. Within these several days there would be parades, performances, procession, games and many lavish meals. Women had to wear these very elaborate and colorful gowns. The ceremonies and festivities would end with the newly married couple ushered into the bedroom, and expected to indulge in trying to produce
Women were looked upon as a man’s property and a way for men to produce children and have a household caretaker. Few had the ability to be educated at a high level. Italian Renaissance poetry portrays several different views people had about women’s role in society back then. Poets such as Cellini and Ludovico Ariosto both explain that their views on woman are that woman are simply just objects to be used by men. On the contrary, poets such as Baldassare Castiglione and of course the women poets Vittoria Colonna and Veronica Gambara, are all defenders of women’s rights. It is disheartening to learn about how insignificant a woman’s role was in the Renaissance. This supposed period of enlightenment in the Italian Renaissance era was not prominent for the women. Women not only had limited power and rights but they also had limited value in the eyes of men. The literature, poems, and art truly show just what kind of negative representation woman received back in this