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Abstract Women's Marital Property in Shakespeare's ABSTRACT WOMEN’S MARITAL PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Christian Brant Williams Many scholars have investigated the bed trick and its significance within the context of gender and sexuality in two of Shakespeare’s plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure. Yet, I contend that an analysis and discussion of the physical bed is as important as the trick itself. Just as the trick has brought about important discussions relating to men’s and women’s sexual experiences in the early modern era, an examination of the physical bed and Helena’s and Mariana’s return thereto, illuminates the different yet equally important issues surrounding early modern women’s marital property. In this thesis, I will demonstrate that despite restrictive and limiting coverture laws of the time, both plays indicate that early modern married women were experiencing more autonomy over their own persons and possessed more rights to property than is often associated with or discussed in relation to the early modern era. WOMEN’S PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Christian Brant Williams Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2017 Advisor: Cynthia Klestinec Reader: Katharine Gillespie Reader: James Bromley ©2017 Christian Brant Williams This thesis titled WOMEN’S MARITAL PROPERTY IN SHAKESPEARE’S ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL AND MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Christian Brant Williams has been approved for publication by The College of Arts and Science and Department of English ____________________________________________________ Cynthia Klestinec _______________________________________________________ Katharine Gillespie __________________________________________________ James Bromley Table of Contents Dedication ...................................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... v Chapter 1: Introduction: Marriage law and Practice in Historical Context .................................... 1 Chapter 2: All’s Well that Ends Well ............................................................................................ 11 Chapter 3: Measure for Measure .................................................................................................. 23 Conclusion and Future Research .................................................................................................. 34 Works Cited .................................................................................................................................. 37 iii Dedication I dedicate my thesis to my wife, Lakesha Williams, and my daughter, Samara Williams. Returning to school as a non-traditional student with a family has been very challenging. Yet, both of you have supported me throughout my entire college career, and for that, I am truly grateful. Thank you for your love, understanding, encouragement, and support, especially these past two years of graduate school. Everything I have accomplished has truly been a team effort. I look forward to everything the future has for us. iv Acknowledgements I would like to express a sincere thank you to the following people, who have supported me and helped me in this research project: To my thesis chair, Dr. Cynthia Klestinec, for her encouragement and feedback throughout the process of researching and drafting; To my committee members, Dr. James Bromley and Dr. Katharine Gillespie, for their time and dedication to me on this project; To the rest of my instructors and colleagues at Miami University, who challenged and inspired me to be an exemplary teacher and scholar. v Introduction Many scholars have investigated the bed trick and its significance within the context of gender and sexuality in two of Shakespeare’s problem plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.1 Because of the sexual matters surrounding the bed trick, it is clearly important to discuss the bed trick in the context of gender and sex, not only in the context of the play, but also in the context of early modern society. Yet, while the bed trick has drawn much scholarly attention, I contend that an analysis and discussion of the role of the physical bed is as important to understanding the play and early modern society as the trick itself. For just as the return to the bed (that is, the marriage bed) of two of Shakespeare’s main female characters (Helena in All’s Well and Mariana in Measure for Measure) has illuminated the nature of male- female relationships and men’s and women’s sexual experiences, an examination of the role of physical bed illuminates an important set of issues surrounding married women’s property in the early modern period. The legal reality often discussed in terms of married women’s property in early modern England is married women’s legal status of coverture. The legal system of coverture was instituted by common law, a legal system responsible for the strictest policies for married women and their property rights. Common law was most restrictive in married women’s autonomy over their own persons, and most limiting of their rights to marital property.2 When looking at coverture laws historically, one would be correct in assuming married women had little (if any) autonomy over their own persons or property (including property women brought into marriages) until the Married Women’s Property Act in 1882. However, Helena and Mariana provide us a different picture of this legal and cultural reality in early modern England. In both All’s Well and 1 Such discussions range from observations of the more readily noticeable purpose of the bed trick – for Helena to gain access to Bertram’s bed to fulfill the marital conditions Bertram set out (Harmon, 119), to, as Janet Adelman discusses in ““Bed Tricks: On Marriage as the End of Comedy,” the use of the bed trick as a way to direct the “illicit desire of men back to their socially sanctioned mates” (2). In “Helena's Bed-trick: Gender and Performance in All’s Well That Ends Well,” David McCandless even contends that the bed trick is an act of prostitution in which Helena “services Bertram’s lust and submits to humiliating anonymous ‘use,’ and that the trick is an act of rape against Bertram by Helena since Helena coerces Bertram into having sex with her against his will (450). 2 Among modern scholars, a popular text outlining coverture laws of the time is The Law’s Resolutions of Women’s Rights: or, the Law’s Provision for Women (accessed via Early English Books Online (EEBO)). As W.R. Prest mentions in “Law and Women’s Rights in Early Modern England,” The Law’s Resolutions has been used as a “handy quarry of quotations on the legal position of Englishwomen in the early modern period” (172). Book three, Section eight of The Law’s Resolutions has two sections on marital property, “That which the husband hath is his own” and “That which the wife hath is the husband’s,” both of which are restrictive of women’s autonomy over person and property. 1 Measure for Measure , Shakespeare’s treatment of Helena’s and Mariana’s marital situations indicates that despite coverture laws of the time, early modern married women could experience more autonomy over their own persons and more rights to property than is often associated with or discussed in relation to the early modern era. Indeed, these plays allow us to understand how the experiences of women extended beyond coverture law when it came to the power they held over themselves and their property. Though the marriage bed is central to my general and overall discussion of married women’s property, the physical bed will be an entryway into examining and discussing additional property in the plays, particularly property associated with marriage. This includes property women brought into the marriage as well as the property acquired through marriage. In the early modern era, the property typically brought into a marriage was a woman’s dowry, which came in two forms, landed and moveable. The moveable dowry consisted of a financial payment arranged as a gift to the husband on the part of the wife. Landed property could also be arranged as dowry at the outset of the marriage, and consisted, as its name suggests, land. But, there were additional properties women brought into marriages. For instance, in the Memoirs of the Verney Family During the Civil War Frances Verney records that when Tom Verney, settling in Barbados in 1638, wrote to his mother asking for “‘household stuff, plate, spoones, and the like, then pewter and brass of all sorts, and linen of all sorts, both for mee and my servants,’” he did not ask his father since those items did not belong to him (152). In “The Landed Woman in Early Modern England,” Amanda Capern mentions that “Property can mean personal estate (chattel) such as jewelry, Bibles or valuable linens and household crockery, and it can mean real estate such as land, buildings, and the legal rights that attach to them, including rights of public office” (186). Jewelry, land, medicine, books, and dowry are the different types of property important in both All’s Well and Measure for Measure. Along with these inanimate properties, I will also focus on people as property, namely women as property (which I will often refer to as
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