That is the question posed by Joan Kelly in an essay she wrote in 1977. Kelly claims that "the state, early capitalism, and the social relations formed by them, impinged on the lives of Renaissance women in different ways according to their different positions in society (20)." As the family and political structures moved from the medieval feudal system, consisting of "medieval courtly love," which allowed for the "expression of sexual love by women," and of some allowance of participation by noblewomen in politics, to the more classical, "early modern state," regardless of class, all women saw a decrease in their personal and social options that men did not (Kelly, 20,22). Indicated by the sources used to represent the nobility and bourgeoisie, chastity became the female norm and "the relations of the sexes were restructured to one of female dependency and male domination (Kelly, 22)." The voices of women diminished, as their "access to power became indirect and provisional (Kelly, 33)." Ultimately, a clear division was made between the personal and private realm and with that "the modern relation of the sexes made its appearance (Kelly, 47)." Kelly's essay has been contested, yet, her "general claims about gender as an analytical category have offered compelling accounts of the relationship between Renaissance structures of economic exploitation and the oppression of women (Kegl, 7)."

Nonetheless, the category of women and their relationships in the Renaissance are topics far too complex to simply delve into blindly. Since all women did not fit into one category, nor did they share the same relationships, it would be an enormous task to approach them as such; therefore, some form of organization must be implemented in the study of women in the Renaissance. Thus, this part of the website attempts to distinguish those women living in the country from those living in the city, specifically focused on the family, education, and religion of women inhabiting popular culture.

Still, it should be noted that these organizational categories are problematic. “Country acquired its modern meanings of a tract or region, and of a land or nation in the thirteenth century (Williams, appendix). “In Tindale in 1526 it is contrasted with the city: ‘tolde it in the cyte, and in the countre (Mark v, 14).’ And by this time ‘city’ had become normal usage for a large town (Williams, appendix).” From the late sixteenth century, the contrasts of ‘city’ and ‘country’ are more frequently pointed out (Williams, appendix), yet this is problematic considering the abundance of literary texts were also published in the late sixteenth century, and hence little emphasis can be found in these texts concerning the distinction between country and city. Moreover, despite evidence from the late sixteenth century that the contrasts of ‘city’ and ‘country’ appeared more frequently, “it ought in any case to be clear that the English experience is especially significant, in that one of the decisive transformations, in the relations between country and city, occurred there very early and with a thoroughness which is still in some ways unapproached. The Industrial Revolution not only transformed both city and country; it was based on a highly developed agrarian capitalism, with a very early disappearance of the traditional peasantry…For it is a critical fact that in and through these transforming experiences English attitudes to the country, and to ideas of rural life, persisted with extraordinary power, so that even after the society was predominately urban its literature, for a generation, was still predominately rural (Williams, 2).” This is problematic since the Industrial Revolution, the time of great transformation, began in the late 18 th century, separating it from the literary texts of the Renaissance by nearly two centuries, and, “even in the twentieth century, in an urban and industrial land, forms of the older ideas and experiences still remarkably persisted (Williams, 2).” Capitalism has determined “the total character of what we know as modern society (Williams, 295). Since the beginnings of the capitalist agrarian mode of production, our powerful images of country and city have been ways of responding to a whole social development (Williams, 297),” yet much of that ‘social development’ took place after the late sixteenth century, the time in which much of the literary texts of the Renaissance were produced.

Even more problematic is the category of popular culture. In Everyday Custom and Popular Culture, Michael Bristol claims that “popular culture was the culture of ordinary people, both the ‘middling sort,’ consisting of urban merchants, well-to-do yeoman farmers, and master craftsmen, and the ‘lesser sort,’ consisting of apprentices, agricultural laborers, and tenant farmers (Bristol, 121).” Conversely, in Problematizing Popular Culture, Tim Harris describes Peter Burke’s model of a cultural transformation in England from 1500-1800; in which, Burke claims that “by 1800 European elites had abandoned popular culture to the lower classes (Harris, 1).” And although the essays compiled by Harris “challenge the validity of seeing a simple polarization between elite and popular cultures and the chronology and extent of change during this period (Harris, 4),” remembering, from above, that the abundance of literary texts were published in the late sixteenth century, that locates them within the earlier stages of the time period, nearer to “the Europe of 1500 in which, according to Burke, ‘popular culture’ was everyone’s culture,” including the elite (Harris, 1).

With the categories of country vs. city and popular culture problematized as such, it would seem logical to choose other categories by which to organize the study of women in the Renaissance. However, problems are likely to arise with any categorical system, therefore, the organization of this part of the website proceeds as originally explained. The contrast between the country and the city is focused specifically on location, the city being London, and on “not limiting ourselves to their contrast but to see their interrelations (Williams, 297).” Interrelations are also the focus concerning the area of popular culture, specifically, grappling with relationships and experiences of women on every ladder of the social hierarchy.

As a final point, today, "it is common for people to assume that women in the past were as passive and modest - or as lusty and immoral - as the sources from the time suggest (Hobby, 8)." However, "less than one percent of the total number of texts published in this period" were actually written by women (Hobby, 6)." Therefore, although these sources provide an insightful glance into the lives of women during the English Renaissance, specifically, the roles they were to occupy within the realms of the family, education, and religion, in analyzing these sources, such as religious texts, advice books, and other literary works, it should be remembered that the female voice is nearly absent.