Anglo-Saxon, Medieval, or Early Modern Period. Essay (Essay Sample)

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Early Modern Period (William Shakespeare, The Tempest)
Q 10: How does a work read this semester depict marriage and marital relations? Does the work offer a critique of the institution, a revisioning of it, a utopic vision of it, or a combination?
In the 17th century England, feminism was a valued discourse and movement among individuals in the then society (De Bruyn, 1). These movements were a concern among not only the common members of that society, but also among the highly regarded societal members such as kings, the clergy, and even authors and other public intellectuals, especially males. These classes of people sought to suppress the attempts by women to agitate for, and develop greater equality with their male counterpart. From the numerous discourses regarding this issue, the patriarchal concerns of men regarding likely social changes were expressed (Williamson, 20). Majority of literature from the 17th century, and from Shakespeare, more particularly, The Tempest, reveal the struggles that emanated from the need by male members of society to establish a purely patriarchal system of administration that relegated women and the institution of marriage into socio-political oblivion and triviality.