What was the role and status of women in Shakespeare's time?

During the Elizabethan period, women had very limited opportunities in life. Most girls grew up to be wives and mothers, and any woman who didn't was considered strange or immoral. During childhood, some wealthy girls might be educated by a private tutor, but it was not allowed for any woman to enter university or practice law or medicine. Some women might help with their family's business if they owned one by doing some cleaning or helping around the shop, and a woman who married a man who owned a business might essentially become a partner in running it. Even so, women were considered second to men in all but one respect—they could bear children. Women were considered too soft, volatile, and sickly to participate in any occupations outside the home. I'm sure some people were even of the opinion that if Queen Elizabeth had married, her husband would have been a better monarch than she.