In many ways, early modern English children were thought of as miniature adults—notice that the girl in the painting that leads this article wears a large ruff typical of late Elizabethan fashions, rather than clothing suitable for her as a child. This typifies the belief in the early modern period that rather than having different needs and desires, children needed to be molded into adults through strict regimes and expectations about behavior. Children were seen as inferior in terms of reason, spiritual development, and self-control—all of which led to an educational approach that was rigid and focused on obedience.
Similarly, youth was thought of as a separate age (after childhood and before manhood). Its symptoms and behaviors often appear in Shakespeare’s plays. The old shepherd in
I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty or that a youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.(3.3.58–62)
Infant and child mortality was high in the period, with children having roughly a 50% chance of living to age five. Common diseases (whooping cough, pneumonia, dysentery), fevers, and influenza killed many young children. Notable outbreaks of the bubonic plague in 1563, 1603, and 1625 killed high numbers of children. Despite their frequent bereavement, early modern parents loved their children, prayed for their survival, and rejoiced when they were born or healed from an illness or injury.
Throughout their lives, children regularly knelt before their parents to receive a blessing, even once they had reached adulthood. Parental responsibility and authority extended into what we would consider early adulthood. Children were expected to obey their parents as subjects were to obey the sovereign. Especially in the gentry and merchant classes, parents were instrumental in arranging marriages for their children. Just as the sovereign had to govern with justice and concern for the welfare of citizens, parents were expected to be responsible in the choice of a spouse for their children. Even girls were expected to consent to the parents’ choice of mate, as Baptista notes regarding Katerina and Petruchio in
In noble or wealthy families, after they had been nursed (often by a hired wet-nurse rather than by their mother), children were usually sent to another high-ranking house to be trained in decorum. The effect was rather like sending them to a boarding-school. Middle and lower-class families usually kept their children at home but employed them at an early age in business or household duties. Regardless of class, a large number of families in the period were fragmented because of death and remarriage—resulting in many stepfamilies.
In the households of commoners, children were more likely to be nursed by their mothers; wet nurses were only employed if the mother had died or was too unwell to nurse an infant. As they grew, girls were given lessons in housekeepoing, such as animal care, sewing, and cooking. Boys given rudimentary tasks that may have led them to apprenticeships with one of the guilds of skilled tradesmen.
There are approximately 29 children mentioned in 27 of Shakespeare’s plays, for the most part unnamed and called simply Boy
or Page
in the list of characters. Most often, they are minor servants. Less often, they are incidental characters who play a minor role in the plot, such as
In some other instances, such as
What, you egg!(4.2.79) in a shocking murder that reveals the cruelty of the new king’s ways. Later in the play, Macduff’s palpable grief for the loss of his family is one of the play’s most moving scenes.
