Chapter 1 Introduction
1.2 Cuckoldry and Adultery in the Renaissance
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1.2 Cuckoldry and Adultery in the Renaissance
My interest in analyzing the nature of cuckoldry and adultery in this play owes much to the previously mentioned Roger Trienens’ 1953 article “The Inception of Leontes’ Jealousy in The Winter’s Tale.” Unlike most critics who account for
Polixenes’ agreement at the solicitation of Leontes’ wife as the beginning of Leontes’
insane jealousy, Trienens instead views it as “as the occasion rather than the cause”
(321). Indeed, many scholars try to account for Leontes’ sudden outburst of jealousy and many of them have attributed it to a weakness inherent in his nature. Harold C.
Goddard, for example, in The Meaning of Shakespeare, illustrates Leontes’ jealousy as sprouting from his “emotional instability” (264). Coleridge, in comparing Leontes with Othello, describes the Sicilian King as a degraded person with faults such as “a disposition to degrade the object of the passion by sensual fancies and images” (9).
Nevertheless, Leontes’ jealousy seems to defy such one-sided interpretation; instead, I view it as the result of a combination of social and cultural factors specific to
Renaissance England. It is the intricate relations between the social aspects and the nature of Leontes’ jealousy that prompt me to delve into the study of such issues as cuckoldry and adultery in the Renaissance.
The issues of adultery and cuckoldry have not gone unnoticed by writers in the Renaissance and early modern England. On the contrary, such issues dominate large numbers of works in various domains, including politics, religion, and literature, whether as a main plot or side story. Such abundance stems from the specific cultural and social context of the Renaissance. Indeed, the emergence of constellations of events—ranging from sex scandals to legal debates to flurries of satirical
events—demonstrates an increasing concern with adultery and cuckoldry in this era.
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However, there is a disproportion regarding the attention paid to adultery and cuckoldry respectively. Although cuckoldry is a common topic in literary satire and comic theatre, scholarly attention has focused more on the issue of female adultery than on the notion of cuckoldry. As Sara F. Matthews-Grieco points out, the seriousness with which female adultery was viewed in the Renaissance and early modern England was “the more visible face of a coin on which male honor and the social stigma of cuckoldry constituted the dark and complex reverse” (1). Cuckoldry is the darker reverse because men were not immune from the shame of adultery.
Under the sexual double standard, the breach of female chastity is considered a most shameful crime, whereas the same behavior committed by men has little influence on their social status and honor. However, this sexual double standard does not make men invincible. They are actually prone to become susceptible to their wives’
transgressed behavior. What accompanies the scandal regarding adultery, whether it is verified or not, is the fear of cuckoldry. In other words, if the wife violates fidelity or is rumored to do such a thing, the husband has to suffer from possible stained honor.
At the center of the discussion of cuckoldry is the dishonor it can bring to men’s masculinity. Masculinity was a political issue in early modern England.
Phrases such as ‘courage-masculine’ or ‘manly virtue’ took on a special meaning. The qualities it evokes include courage, physical strength, prowess in battle, manly honour, and defiance of fortune (Wells 2). However, this thesis deals with a different yet significant element constituent in Renaissance manhood—male honor associated with female chastity. In Jacobean England, a wife’s sexual infidelity was the most
shameful and emasculating loss of male control that can be imagined, and it reflects the cultural fears about what would happen if the structure of marriage was turned upside down. The husband of an adulteress was considered a “cuckold” and often
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depicted with horns growing out of his head. The mere suggestion that a woman was having sexual relations with a man other than her husband could greatly damage not only her reputation but the husband’s as well. Specifically, female honor and social respectability were tied in so closely that death was often preferable to the loss of a woman’s chastity.
The study of masculinity in this thesis with regard to The Winter’s Tale owes much to the works of Mark Breitenberg and Elizabeth Foyster. In Anxious
Masculinity in Early Modern England (1996), Breitenberg aims to expose the contradictions and anomalies of the construction of masculine subject in patriarchal culture. In the pioneering study in her book Manhood in Early Modern England (1999), Elizabeth Foyster offers perceptive insight into the analysis of the gender identities of men and women in early modern England in relation to each other.
Foyster’s principal aim is to explore the workings of patriarchal marriage in
seventeenth-century England, showing the importance of the dominance over women in the formation of men’s identity. Getting married confirmed a man’s entry into patriarchal society, conferring new social roles and responsibilities. At the same time, however, it was also a testing-ground for manhood, as men’s honor depended greatly on not just rational self-control but also the sexual control of women. As a result, men who failed to live up to this ideal would easily fall victim to mockery and suffer stained honor.
Foyster in her book provides fictional evidence of a jealous man, sources including Shakespeare’s plays and other Early Modern English work. For instance, she points out in John Ford’s 1633 work The Broken Heart that male fear about wife’s fidelity arises out of a “self-unworthiness” (179). Furthermore, in her discussion of William Wycherley’s The Country Wife, published in 1675, she notes that “a cuckold
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and a jealous husband can be subject to the same degree of public dishonor” (183).
Consulting various source materials in the field of literature and law, Foyster demonstrates the derision and abuse directed against cuckolded husbands, showing that although a man’s honour might be damaged by a variety of non-sexual behavior (such as dishonesty, theft and drunkenness), cuckold was “the worst name a man could acquire” (194). OED defines jealousy as zeal or vehemence of feeling against some person or thing; it is a kind of anger, wrath, or indignation. Further definition of the concept regarding its romantic aspect is that jealousy is the state of mind arising from the suspicion, apprehension, or knowledge of rivalry. In Renaissance England, jealousy is repeatedly referred to as “zealous love” in Gabriel Harvey’s Letter-book, written between 1573-1580 (95-96). Moreover, in Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Robert Burton cites Jerome Cardan’s definition of jealousy as “a zeal for love, and a kinde of envy least any man should beguile us” (28-29). While jealousy is not necessarily associated with female infidelity, in the case of marriage, however,
jealousy implies the fear of being supplanted in the affection, or distrust of the fidelity, of a beloved person. Since being jealous implies rivalry with another man, men are extremely sensitive to accusations of jealousy. For instance, Foyster points out Sir Francis Willoughby’s anger in replying to his wife’s letter in 1585, which he thought was full of implication of jealousy. On negotiating coming back to live with her husband after separation of ten years, Lady Willoughby’s letter reads:
that I should take heed and beware how I come to you again, for you had determined and vowed that if ever you took me again, you would keep me shorter than 'ere I was kept, that you [would] lock and pin me up in a chamber, and that I should not go so much as into the garden to take the air, without your leave and license. (553)
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Sir Francis Willoughby angrily replied to this letter, arguing that her letter contained much “that may minister occasion of offence” (185). As Foyster notes, the label of jealous husband was clearly damaging to male reputation.
More intriguing is the question of how adultery and related issues affected a man’s self-esteem. One of the most interesting sections of Foyster’s book compares literary representations of jealousy with the diarist Samuel Pepys’s account of his jealous feelings about his wife’s relations with her dancing-master Pembleton. In his diaries, he wrote that his jealousy made him “ready to chide at everything,” and he also described it as “a devilish jealousy [which] makes a very hell in my mind” (186).
Even after the dancing lessons were over, the memories of Pembleton still haunted him. Only after he was informed of the news of Pembleton’s new marriage did things start to improve. It is interesting that Pepys found Pembleton’s marriage reassuring.
Pembleton’s married status meant that “he shared the concern of all husbands to gain honor by keeping his own wife under control” (188).The issue of how cuckolds perceived themselves remains an interesting point of analysis not only in this specific work but in The Winter’s Tale as well. Furthermore, though men appeared to have greater opportunities than women to regain lost sexual reputation, the stigma of cuckoldry seems to have been difficult to remove. The best a man could do was to act swiftly and decisively to prove that he would not stand the shame of cuckoldry, neither would he be a “wittol” – a willing participant in his wife’s adultery (Foyster 187).
1.3 Shakespeare’s Other Plays That Deal With Defamation Regarding Adultery