Marriage and Land Law in Shakespeare and Middleton examines the
dynamics of early modern marriage-making, a time- honored practice
that was evolving, often surreptitiously, from patriarchal control
based on money and inheritance to a companionate union in which
love and the couple's own agency played a role. Among early modern
playwrights, the marriage plays of Shakespeare and Middleton are
particularly, though not uniquely, concerned with this evolution,
observing, as they do, the movement towards spousal choice
determined by the couple themselves. Through the late Elizabethan
and early Jacobean period, the role of the patriarch, though often
compromised, remained intact: the father or guardian negotiated the
financial terms. And, in a culture that was still tied to feudal
practices, land law held a primary place in the bargain. Hence this
study, while following the arc of changing marriage practices,
focuses on the ways in which the oldest determination of status,
land, affects marital decisions. Land is not a constant topic of
conversation in the 21 theatrical marriages scrutinized here, but
it is a persistent and omnipresent truth of family and economic
life.In paired discussions of marriage plays by Shakespeare and
Middleton-The Taming of the Shrew/A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, All's
Well That Ends Well/A Trick To Catch the Old One, Measure for
Measure/A Mad World, My Masters, The Merchant of Venice/The Roaring
Girl, and Much Ado About Nothing/No Wit, No Help Like A
Woman's-this study explores the attempts, maneuvers, intrigues,
ruses, and schemes that marriageable characters deploy in order to
control spousal choice and secure land. Special attention is given
to patriarchal figures whose poor judgment exploits inheritance law
weaknesses and to the lack of legal protection and hence the
vulnerability of women-and men-who engage the system in
unconventional ways. Investigation into the milieu of early modern
patriarchal influence in marriage-making and the laws governing
inheritance practices enables a fresh reading of Shakespeare's and
Middleton's marriage comedies.
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