Life of a Italian girl

Answer 1

It is difficult to answer your question without knowing when you are asking about. The status of women was very different depending on which era you are studying. Modern women and girls in Italy have far more rights and opportunities than they did hundreds of years ago; Italian girls today are typical of those in most western countries-- they go to school; they decide what they want for a career (or what job training they need, if they are not going to college); they can vote and/or run for political office; and many marry and have children (althogh the Birth Rate in Italy is currently low). While Italy is still very traditional about male and female gender roles, girls today still have many more choices of career path than they did even fifty years ago.

But life for girls in the old days was very different, and far more restricted. For example, in ancient Rome, while women had few political rights, upper class women had some power in the domestic sphere, running their home and supervising their servants. But women in Rome were expected to be wives and mothers; a career outside the home would have been frowned upon, and it even took a long time before upper class women were allowed to own property or participate in the business decisions of running a large estate.

If a girl were poor and lower class in ancient Rome (and even years later), she would have received no education and would have been apprenticed into a system of serving the upper class lady for whom she worked as a servant; and yes, there were slaves back then, so some girls might have been born into slavery, with no rights of any kind. If a girl were upper class, she would have been taught the necessary social graces (good manners, a knowledge of music, an appreciation of religious rituals), and familiarized with the skills for running a home. Upper class girls might also have been taught some basic educational skills such as reading or math, but they would not have gone to school.