Do men and women not shed the same blood? Of course they do, so why is it that women are treated so unfairly? Women for hundreds of years have been degraded to something less than man when all along they should have been treated equally. The women of the Renaissance period were mistreated by being denied the right to chose whom they wished to marry. In the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream Theseus talks about how the power lay with the father to choose who may marry his daughter. Theseus talks about the law with Hermia and Egeus because Hermia contests the law.
Theseus also talks about how she may be put to death if she does not comply with the law. Hermia is contesting the law because she has two people pursuing her. One that her father has chosen for her to marry and another that has won her heart over. Hermia wants to marry Lysander the one that has won her heart, but since her father does not approve of him she is being forced to marry Demetrius. By the end of the play Theseus feels differently towards Hermia’s claim specially after the children run off into the woods.
He turns in the favor of Hermia’s claim which is for her to be able to choose whom she wishes to marry. Helena has a different experience than Hermia and she speaks of it to Demetrius: Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex. We cannot fight for love, as men may do; We should be wooed, and were not made to woo. (537) Helena states here how she is pursuing Demetrius when it should be Demetrius pursuing her. Helena tries to make herself more appealing to Demetrius so he will like her, but everything she does discourages him even more.
It was not until the fairies intervened that Demetrius fell in love with Helena. The fairies gave Demetrius love potion without him knowing, and that was the only thing that made Demetrius love Helena. Puck knew that if he were to remove the pedals from Demetrius’s eyes that he would not like Helena anymore. That is why he left the pedals on Demetrius’s eyes after he had already removed them from the others. Shakespeare took the seriousness of love and the idea of arranged marriages and turned it into a comedy.
He showed how looks sometimes do not matter by making someone fall in love with a jackass. Then there was Puck. Puck played with love by making people fall in love with other people when they really did not even like them. Also on the more serious note he showed how women had to choose between love and what their father wanted, and the consequences of their actions. Finally he showed how people can change like Theseus on his decision of marriage. Also Demetrius and his feelings for Helena although they changed with the help of the fairies.
Women’s main purpose in the Renaissance period was to serve man. Thesues shows you this when he is talking to Hermia and how she is to follow what her father says. Women were also reminded of this before their wedding. Someone would usually approach them and tell them that: … your husband is to be obeyed implicitly and not answered angrily. When you are married do not act childishly; you are to provide food. (108-9) What the women of the Renaissance experienced was not marriage but slavery.
Arranged marriages are still happening today and like before they still have many problems with them. One problem is there could be a big age difference. The age difference could lead to different way of thinking and interpreting things. Another problem is most girls in arranged marriages get married at a very young age. So, they are still just a kid and cannot handle all the responsibilities of taking care of a family. Finally, there is the subject of divorce. Most women would not ask to separate from their spouse because they would be afraid of what might happen.
I think that the whole Renaissance period for women was cruel. I relate this kind of mistreatment to that of a farmer who raises a calf for the purpose of veal. Everyone knows how they cage up the baby calf and tie it down so they cannot move. It is the same thing. The daughter is caged in a sense that she is not allowed to be free and chose whom she wants to marry, and she is tied down by being forced to get married. So this was a very cruel thing to have happen to women, and someday I hope that arranged marriages will be abolished totally.
