Like women of the Middle Ages, the women of the Renaissance were denied all political rights and considered legally subject to their husbands. Women of all classes were expected to perform the duties of housewife. Peasant women worked in the field alongside their husbands and ran the home. The wives of middle class shop owners and merchants often helped run their husbands’ businesses as well. Though attended by servants, women of the highest class most often occupied the tasks of the household, sewing, cooking, and entertaining others. Women who did not marry were not permitted to live independently. Instead, they lived in the households of their male relatives or, more often, joined a convent.
Women’s Rights, Roles and Restrictions
In Florentine society, the family was the basic unit and blood ties were the most powerful cohesive agent. Florentine marriages were the same from the culture of the early middle ages and the society of late antiquity that was so admired. Women often didn’t marry for love, it was all to the father’s personal interests in finding an ideal marriage partner, in order to strengthen the family’s position in the community. Therefore, marrying into a respected house such as the Medici or Strozzi was a mark of honour, because it raised the marriage partner’s family to a higher social status.
Young women never experienced dating or 
attend parties. A woman could only trust that her father would find a handsome or suitable husband. Florentine marriage proposals were like bidding for a prize racehorse. A father would use a daughter to strengthen his fortune by marrying her to a rich man. Women were only seen as guest in their father’s house. If the father died, he would leave instructions about the daughter’s future with no regard for the girl’s thoughts on the matter. The Renaissance have reduced a woman’s social freedom because it seems that all the opportunities were open to men. Marriage presented no great freedom. Stuck in the house, women could never go out alone in public. In the case of an elite or aristocratic woman, the only functions she attended were church, weddings of her husband’s family or private functions at her husband’s estates.
Women did not form friendships with other men or women. According to Renaissance Florence, it was a man’s world. Florentine laws restricted women from writing books on their thoughts on the political situation of Florence and their social and economical situation in comparison to men. The Florentine culture was clearly a masculine oriented one.
Marriage and Widows
Nonetheless, women had some choice. She could live with her husband’s family, by her children’s side, or she could also remarry and leave her first husband’s family. Women never lived alone. Widows were welcomed home if they were young, but if they were older they were advised to stay with their family of her husband. A widow living with her husband’s family did not earn the freedom to make her own decisions or decisions for her children. The eldest male member of the family became the head of the household.
Under no circumstance would a woman be able to take charge in a case of her husband dying. If her husband had instructed her to raise the children, this would have been appropriate to the husband’s family. Even after death, a husband could control the movements of his wife. Florentine laws blocked women from receiving their dead husband’s property and the widowed wife would only be able to raise her children to maturity, restricting a woman’s freedom to control her own life.
If a widow was young and beautiful, her family would take her back and arrange another marriage immediately. Women who left their children in search of a new husband were cruel mothers. Florentine laws were not designed to support women in widowhood. Florentine society had strong ties to the Church, therefore, widowed women living independently caused a problem for church and community.
Marriage in 15th century Florence was a legal contract between the families. A marriage involved expensive gifts such as clothes, jewels, and perfumes. These gifts were kept in a treasure chest. For a marriage to be legal in Florence, the groom would serenade his wife through his neighbourhood streets to show the community that he has taken a wife.
Rights for Jewish women
Unlike Christian women, Jewish women had some legal independence. Jewish communities had their own laws. Women had the right to sign contracts, represent themselves in court, and initiate legal actions. In Turin, Italy, a Jewish father’s wealth was put directly into his daughter’s dowry. The reasons for this practice were many, but mainly it was intended to protect family property. The middle-class status of most Italian Jews played a role in balancing power between men and women.
Renaissnace Women Artists
Renaissance Europe was not a promising place for female artists to emerge. Women were unable to receive formal art training. However, by the influence of he humanists during he sixteenth century, it was possible for a few upper-class women to study painting. Privately taught often by their fathers who were drafting them into the family business. Many managed to became successful artists. Among them were: Sofonisba Anguissla, Marietta Robusti, the daughter of the famous artist, Tintoretto and Caterina dei Vigri, a nun.
Reference;
https://crystalcavechronicles.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/role-of-women-during-the-renaissance-period/
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/renaissance1/section9.rhtml
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/w/women-in-the-renaissance/
http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-3426300033/women-renaissance-and-reformation.html
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/hot/women-artists-of-the-renaissance.html
Woman in the Renaissance 