A Chaste Maid In Cheapside Patriarchy Analysis

The theme for honour and fidelity apply for both men and women in Shakespeare’s play ‘much ado about nothing’. Honour and fidelity is represented very differently for men and women as it would have been for the people in Elizabethan times. In this first section of the essay, I will be exploring double standards and Shakespeare’s awareness of the double standards between sexes and his feminist approach, the differences of honour and fidelity for men and women and upper class and lower class comparisons.

In a patriarchal society, women are expected to conform to social restrictions by demonstrating reverence and obedience to the males in their lives. Shakespeare's tragic play, Romeo and Juliet, explores the effects of patriarchal authority exerted over women and how the patriarchal structure left no escape from it, save death. Through Juliet, Lady Capulet, and the Nurse, Shakespeare establishes a common understanding of this type of society, but illuminates three different reactions to the social oppression by portraying the responses of a passionate lover, an idyllic housewife, and an attendant.

The concept of a male dominated patriarchal society is not a recent composition. As far back as the middle ages, literature is strongly sentimental towards a male dominant society in which the woman plays the part of a peacekeeper or a beautiful object of desire, a respectful and obedient observer that is entirely confined – her role prescribed. Popular texts such as "Macbeth”, “Beowulf”, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “The Book of Margery Kempe” show support for this prescribed anti-feminism. Women who obey and strictly follow the roles of wives, mothers, and “peace weavers” generally appear as confined. While such a word may conjure images of forceful restriction; the confined woman of Middle Ages literature appears happy, gracious and thankful to live in such a role. “Beowulf” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” offer readers two distinctive stereotypes of women, those who are or are not confined to their role in society. By presenting extremely different illustrations of each idea a paradigm is set that a good woman is one who is confined while a bad woman is not as they can to act according to her own will, which is an apparently dangerous in the eyes of the Middle Ages. “Macbeth” and “The Book of Margery Kempe” expand beyond such blatant antifeminism, exploring the abilities of how one can take advantage of a patriarchal society, exploiting it for their own needs if need be. Through the lens of feminism, these texts also serve to show the depth of characters

In the third act of Thomas Middleton 's A Chaste Maid at Cheapside (1613), the audience is presented with the christening of the Allwit newborn. As Mrs. Allwit 's bed is brought onto the stage, the christening is attended by five gossips, two Puritan women, Maudlin Yellowhammer, Mrs. Allwit 's midwife, and a number of other women—namely, the majority of the play 's eighteen female characters. However, the female characters are allowed to dominate the stage only up to a point, as the christening scene is also witnessed by Allwit, whose sole function in the scene is to comment on the events of the christening. It is through Allwit that the audience learns that the women are overindulging in the food and wine served to them; he also alerts us of the women 's, to use Gail Kern Paster 's euphemism, leaking. Most importantly, however, Allwit becomes a mouthpiece of sorts for the social and cultural perceptions of these women.

In the film, Wag the Dog, a presidential sex scandal at the White House occurs eleven days before elections. The particular scandal is one that is severely detrimental to the president’s chances of successfully obtaining reelection. As a result, the characters in the movie engineer and direct a completely fraudulent war to divert attention away from the news of the scandal as well as a number of subsequent fabrications to improve the president’s popularity through influencing the public opinion of fellow Americans. The film, Iron Jawed Angels, is about young female suffragist activists whose goal is to obtain the right to vote for American women through the passing of a constitutional amendment. The interest group of women seeks to influence

Fear of cuckoldry is widely known theme in medieval and Renaissance English literature. Fear of cuckoldry was also a widespread fear in English society during those eras. Men often treated their wives as possessions. Once men and women married, divorce was almost impossible, especially since it was almost impossible to prove that one had been cuckolded. If one were cuckolded and one’s wife had another man’s child, one might spend decades taking care of that child and passing on one’s money and belongings to that child without ever knowing that one had been deceived. Unmarried women are seen as their fathers ' property and the play 's two marriages are marked by jealousy and cruelty. Most

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is considered a work of satire towards medieval society by many literary critics. Chaucer uses the Wife of Bath as a prime way to quip a key fourteenth century practice wherein medieval society is patriarchal from noblemen to peasants. Women are one of the most restrained groups. The Wife of Bath narrates a story mocking male superiority and spouts a pro-women narrative. In this tale, the Wife of Bath shows women not submitting to a man’s world. For this period in time, she is a progressive who implies men are not in control of society which does not fit the mold of women at the time. She infers women are running everything from behind the curtain with men merely being used as puppets.

In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.

Entertainment and education through the oppression of women finds a common place in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath Prologue and John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. In both stories the audience is introduced to the idea of female independence and strength through a confident and skilled female character who envelops the knowledge required to subvert the standards of patriarchal and misogynistic society. While both women in the The Wife of Bath Prologue and The Duchess of Malfi are varied characters who (think they) exude authority and seem to be able to live outside the limitations of a patriarchal society, at a closer look it is obvious this is not the case. Chaucer and Webster have both developed a story that parallel the stereotypes of the misogynist political and social structure of the time. Furthermore, they have blended comedy and entertainment to create stories that are didactic in nature they reaffirm the stereotype of unruly widows and ultimately show that no good will come to women who attempt to live outside the structural confines of the patriarchal and misogynist structures of society.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a play with themes that parallel the folly of the festival it is named after. The main storyline of the plot plays on this a lot by mixing up the stereotypes around gender that were very present at the time. However, a sub-plot involving secondary characters defines this theme even more. It takes the idea even further by relating servants’ attempts to blur the lines between social classes. Twelfth Night’s Maria and Malvolio both have great aspirations to rise above their social class. However, Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails because of her capability to make use of the satiric ambiance of her mistress’s household to achieve her goals.

In the time period of the 14th century, many woman faced inequality. Women were not viewed to uphold the same quota as men. Most females were viewed as passive to males and were not able to make many demands in their relationships or make any contributions to their own survival or life. In the “Wife of Bath Tale”, written by Geoffrey Chaucer, Chaucer gives an insight into the struggles of a woman. Chaucer gives a voice for women who cannot speak for themselves. He creates a tale for the Wife of Bath that includes and questions the societal views of women. Written in the words of a woman, Chaucer undermines what it means to be a female in the fourteenth century who desires independence and

Throughout history, gender roles have been an important barrier in society. Women are forced to satisfy expectations established by men and society. “My Last Duchess,” by Robert Browning, focuses on the powerful Duke establishing certain expectations of the Duchess, and attempting to control her. Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, concentrates on Laertes establishing certain expectations of Ophelia, and seeking to control her. A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf, centers on societal expectations of Judith, and her father trying to control her. In all three texts, men have the ability to control women and have the freedom to do as they please. Women must conform to the expectations of faithfulness, attentiveness, and chastity.

William Shakespeare authored his plays, The Merchant of Venice and As You Like It, at least four centuries prior to Judith Butler’s twenty-first century gender theories. However, two of his characters, Portia and Rosalind, temporarily “alter” their genders and assume opposing gender roles in his texts. In effect, these characters and their actions deconstruct the sixteenth-century constructs of gender and gender-appropriate behaviors. They transgress gender boundaries, and they incorporate other genders within themselves, thus illustrating that gender boundaries are permeable. In light of Butler’s gender theories, and in the context of sixteenth-century society, following is an examination of the deconstruction of gender and gendered behaviors in The

Women in the 16th century, the Shakespearean Era, didn’t have too many expectations placed upon them. Because they were considered the weaker sex, housewives and mothers was the extent of what was expected of them. The only education they had access to were private tutors inside their homes. They also were not allowed to become lawyers, doctors, or the like. Only maids, cooks or other “around the house” jobs. This is a summary of the average Patriarchal society. In the play, Merchant of Venice written by Shakespeare, the women defy these stereotypes of a patriarchal society in multiple scenarios.

Written and performed during the crucial transition between feudalism and capitalism, Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, like many other Renaissance plays, expresses the period’s questioning and anxieties surrounding the growth of the market. Economic shifts were described in commercial tracts as ‘strange, uncontrolled, even dangerous’ , and seemed so foreign they were most often engaged with through metaphor and imagery. Fumerton, for example, highlights in his work the use of ‘the body, soul, and spirit of man’ as economic analogies. Indeed, writers of the time commonly used images of the body to convey wider messages about the market, and the ever changing nature of city life.