Why did boys play the women's roles in the Globe theatre?

Answer 1

Two especial reasons: one having to do with the boys, and another with the women. People even a century ago reached puberty much later than we do nowadays. Boys might be seventeen before their voices started to break and their beards started to grow. Thus older teenaged boys could get away with the girly voice for years while they worked on their skill as actors. Likewise, women's fashions were such as would lend themselves to being worn by boys: the bodices were flattened, making even bosomy women look flat-chested, and no cleavage showed. The skirts were full and the hips padded out so that even boyish derrieres and hips could be made to look feminine. Furthermore, social custom and even laws provided that certain types of people had to wear certain types of clothes, and clothes were expensive so most people had only a couple of suits of them. People got used to identifying other people by what they wore. This not only made boys disguising themselves as girls plausible but made all the plot devices involving girls disguising themselves as boys and occasionally boys disguising themselves as girls much more plausible.

Answer 2

Before 1660, female roles in plays were played by men and boys. Older, heavier women (like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet) were played by adult men, while younger, prettier women were played by boys in their early teens whose voices had not yet broken. They had high voices and slim figures which made it easier for them to impersonate young women. In the early 1600s two companies formed entirely of boys, the Boys of St. Paul's and the Children of the Chapel, performed plays where the boys played the parts of adult men and women as well as young girls and boys. Shakespeare refers to these companies in a conversation between Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act 2 of Hamlet. These children's companies did not play Shakespeare's plays, however. Beaumont and Fletcher, yes. Shakespeare, no.

Answer 3

Women were not allowed to appear on stage, as that would be disgustingly immoral, and boys whose voices had not yet broken sounded more like girls than grown men. They were also often slimmer and smaller and looked better in a dress.

Answer 4

It was disgraceful, lewd and obscene for women to parade themselves on a stage where men who were not their husbands could gawk at them. Therefore they had boys play the parts instead.

Answer 5

because women weren't allowed to act in plays those days :-) =P

Answer 6

It was considered to be terribly indecent for a woman to appear on stage--just the fact of her being there would make it a "lewd display" which would probably get the theatre closed down.