Renaissance Family Virtues and Their Significance to As You Like It

Kristin Gehringer, May 2003

When I began this class, and even began my research for this paper, I did not have a good understanding of what the term “Renaissance” actually meant, or of what period of time this term referred to.  Therefore, I thought that it was a good idea to clarify on this before I tried to learn about what family life was like at that time, and I also thought it might be interesting to look at Shakespeare’s family.

The word “Renaissance” means rebirth and refers to the 15^th Century, between the years 1350 and 1600 (Greene Malvasi, par. 1).  At this time, there were many changes being undergone, and one of the most important changes was the reappearance of cities, which influenced many aspects of life, including the structure of the family (Greene Malvasi, par. 1).

William Shakespeare was born in 1564, and was one of eight children.  William’s father was a glove-maker, who also held a number of public offices, ranging from Borough Ale-Taster to alderman to bailiff, the highest public office in Stratford (“Shakespeare’s Family”, par. 1).  His mother was born Mary Arden, who was the daughter of a well-to-do landowner of a lesser aristocratic family (“Shakespeare’s Family”, par. 3).  Interestingly, the family gave its name to the nearby Forest of Arden, which turns up in As You Like It (“Shakespeare’s Family”, par. 3).

Shakespeare’s mother, being of a lower aristocratic family, and marrying into a higher family was common practice for marriages in the Renaissance.  With parental permission, boys could legally wed at 14, and girls at 12, but it was not recommended at such a young age (“Marriage and Family”, par. 1).  This does sound like a young age.  But in Renaissance Italy, children did not automatically become adults upon reaching a certain age as they do today, generally at the age of eighteen, but rather adulthood came only when their father went before a judge and legally granted his children their independence (Greene Malvasi, par. 2).  A child’s parents arranged most marriages, and the details were often worked out well in advance, maybe even when the children were still in infancy (Greene Malvasi, par. 3).  A marriage for love was looked upon as ludicrous, whereas marriages were arranged to add to a family’s wealth or stature (Greene Malvasi, par. 3).  However, we the readers know how those young children of wealthy families in Shakespeare’s plays were.  In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hermia, Eugeus’ daughter, is promised to the noble Demetrius.  Yet she loves Lysander, and runs off with him to be married in a place outside of her father’s rules.  In real Renaissance life, children of noble birth ran a great risk if they tried to marry with out the approval of their parents, as they would be left without any resources (“The Age of Marriage”, par. 5).  This would be a foolish thing for a child to do, especially a male child or a son, as male primogeniture was the law of inheritance.  Male primogeniture means that the eldest son inherits everything, even if the eldest child is a girl, unless provisions are made for younger sons (“Heirs and Inheritance”, pars. 1-2).

Divorces were far and few between, which may account in part of the skepticism of marring for love.  If a family was what we would call a “broken” family, it came from the sense that one parent had died and the other remarried (“Children”, par 10).  This is illustrated in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where Hamlet’s father is killed and his mother remarries to Hamlet’s uncle, or Hamlet’s father’s brother.

So far a traditional Renaissance family sounds pretty different to a traditional family of the 21^st Century.  But was the importance of family was much different back then than it is now?  It is said that many families nowadays do not get to spend much quality family time together between of the hustle and bustle of school, work, after-school sports, and everyday busy life.  Renaissance families also did not get to spend a lot of togetherness time either.  For example, the children of wealthy families were seldom nursed by their own mothers, but rather by a wet nurse, or a woman hired to nurse the baby from infancy, and aid in raising it through childhood (“Family in the Renaissance”, par 2).  Aside from being nursed by a woman other than their mother, children were also often sent to another noble house to learn how to behave nobly (“Children”, par. 2).  This may lead one to believe that children were taught very young how to basically, grow up.  But children were thought of as miniature adults rather than having needs and wants of their own (“Children”, par. 1).  Therefore, they were expected to act in a proper manner, a manner that lived up to the prestige of the family name, and if they acted out, they were punished, as children were to give their parents the same respect a servant would give them, as they are their parents property (“Marriage and Family”, par. 8).

In 1598, Robert Cleaver wrote that “parents have four particular duties toward their children: to instruct them in the fear of the Lord; to rear them to love virtue and to hate vice; to be examples of godliness to them; and to keep them from idleness” (Camden).  The third statement took me: to be examples of godliness to them.  This is amazingly similar to how fathers perceive their duties toward their children today; only we use the word hero.  So it appears, that even six centuries ago, mothers and fathers highly regarded the importance of being a role model to their children.

Another reason the family may have been distanced was due to the family structure of the Renaissance period and the paradoxical category that women were placed in (“Family in the Renaissance”, par 4).  On one hand, women had very little status, but on the other hand there were a number of expectations placed on them (“Family in the Renaissance”, par 4).  To be a daughter was to be twice subject: female to male, and child to parent (“Children”, par 8).  Women were generally expected to marry, raise a family, and manage the household (“Family in the Renaissance”, par. 5).  The family became, on the Protestant view, a little kingdom in its own right, ruled benevolently by the father (privy to divine purpose), supported by maternal solicitude (Jardine, 49).  The conflict of a woman’s expected status within the marriage relationship was written about in one of John Taylor’s verses:

Ill fares the hapless family that shows
A cock that’s silent, and a Hen that crows.
I know not which live more unnatural lives,
Obedient husbands, or commanding wives
(“Family in the Renaissance”, par. 5).

Educated women that spoke up made many people uncomfortable because they were crossing these boundaries (“Family in the Renaissance”, par. 6).  This may be why a modern female audience such as us takes to Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing so well, as she stated from the very beginning that she did not want to marry.  There is a famous passage of St. Paul (Ephesians, 5: 22-5):

Ye women, submit your selves unto your own
husbands, as unto the Lord.  For the husband is the
wife’s head, even as Christ is the head of the
Church, and he is the saviour of the whole body.
Therefore as the Church in congregation is subject
unto Christ: so likewise let the wives be in
subjection unto their own husbands in all things
(“The Wife’s Status”, par. 2).

So how does all this relate to the play As You Like It?  Well, there are a few dominant relationships in the play to look at.  Firstly, there are the two dueling brothers, Oliver and Orlando.  Their father died, and it seems as though provisions were made for the younger brother Orlando to receive some of his father’s inheritance.  Being the older brother, and therefore the one that by Renaissance rule would be the main beneficiary of the inheritance, Oliver has refused to give Orlando what is rightfully his.  This creates a war and there becomes a growing feeling of tension and hatred.  It is not until the end of the play, when the two brothers are peacefully reunited, and only after Orlando risks his live for his brother, causing Oliver to have a change of heart.

The next relationship parallels this relationship perfectly.  It is between Duke Senior and Duke Frederick.  Duke Senior was the ruler of the land, but his brother Duke Frederick declared that he was the rightful ruler and banished his brother to the Forest of Arden.  We know that Orlando fought for Duke Senior, paralleling that they are the “good” brothers, while Oliver and Duke Frederick are paralleled as the “evil” brothers. Again, it is not until the end, when Duke Frederick is re-born after an encounter with an elder religious man, and gives the land and title to his brother.

The other relationship that is prevalent is between father and daughter, and is shown through Rosalind and her father Duke Senior, and Celia and her father Duke Frederick.  Celia steps outside of the norms of Renaissance family virtues, when she goes against her father and runs off with Rosalind to the forbidden Forest of Arden.  This action would have been frowned upon, and lucky for Celia that her father has a change of heart in the end of the play, otherwise she would have been punished badly.  Rosalind, on the other hand, seems to have respect for her father.  When she first meets her father in the forest she is disguised as a male Shepard named Ganymede.  Duke Senior asks Ganymede about her father, and she respectfully says that her father is as good as he is.  Later in the play, when Rosalind is about to wed Orlando, she first asks her father, while she id dressed as Ganymede, if it is all right for Rosalind to marry Orlando.  She is asking for his permission, knowing that it would be wrong to marry without her father’s consent.

As the play ends with happiness and restoration of all of the family ties, I think that it is symbolic, showing that like today, each family has it’s ups and downs, but when it’s all said and done, family comes first.

Works Cited

“The Age of Marriage.” http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/SLTnoframes/society/marriage.html

Camden, Carroll.  The Elizabethan Woman.  Paul P. Appel, Publisher.  Mamoroneck, New York, 1975.

“Children.” http://web.uvic.ca/shakespeare/Library/SLTnoframes/society/children.html