This essay compares the role of women in Shakespeares "Taming of the Shrew" and "Much Ado About Nothing"

The Roles of Women
The roles of women in the Elizabethan time were very confined. Women could be tutored, but they were not allowed to attend universities. Women could not vote, they could not be heirs to their fathers title, and a man had the legal right to chastise his wife as he was seen as the head of the marriage. Gender roles are standards in which men and women are expected to play according to their sex. Women in many of Shakespeare's plays established their own identity in the story through a sequence of interactions with various characters in the play. The female characters in…