Question
2: In what significant ways does the patriarchal system influence the Duchess’s
circumstances in “the Duchess of Malfi” by John Webster?
Ans:
Probably the most important thing to know about the
Duchess when we begin reading this play is her very special snowflake social
position. In Renaissance Europe, a woman was, in almost every conceivable
situation, under the power of some man in her life: before marriage, her
father; after marriage, her husband. If Husband dies; Usually an adult son
steps in.
Our girl the Duchess, though, is almost
unique in that, having been widowed by her first husband and not having had any
children by him (there's one mention of a son by Husband Numero Uno—the former
Duke of Malfi—but we're pretty sure that that's a mistake) she not only gets to
more or less control her own life but she's also inherited the political power
of her dead husband. This complicated set of circumstances leaves us with a
single, autonomous young woman getting to be large and in charge in her own court.
She, quite literally, rules.
The Duchess is a personal and dramatic
powerhouse: she defies her brothers, marries for love, does her level best to
keep her family safe and survives the tortures of Ferdinand with her sanity
intact. Also, she's kind of hard to kill: in addition to reviving for a moment
after she's been executed, she comes back as an echoing voice warning Antonio
in the final act—even once she's dead you can't hold this woman down. Sisters
are doin' it for themselves.
Single
and Ready to Mingle
While rare, the Duchess's position isn't
totally unprecedented. What's really shocking about her is her willingness to
totally chuck social norms out the window and get hitched to a social inferior.
Yeah, her brothers can't legally control her, but that they'd blatantly order
her not to remarry and that she'd then turn around and say "Let old wives
report / I winked and chose a husband" (1.1.340-41)? That's some real
moxie.
The Duchess's marriage to Antonio is social
crazy cakes to early modern society on several levels:
She's directly defying the explicit
wishes of her male relatives.
She woos, proposes to, and then marries
Antonio—basically doing all the heavy lifting in the courtship process and
assuming a masculine social position.
She marries unequally—aristocrats and
non-aristocrats were not supposed to be intermarrying.
She initiates a marriage wherein the man
is the one marrying upwards—while men could marry beneath their social station,
it was a big no-no for women to do so.
She pretty clearly digs Antonio's bod.
In short, there are a lot of unwritten
social rules she's breaking here, even though it's actually perfectly legal for
her to marry Antonio (and, believe it or not, her quickie marriage in her bedroom
with Cariola as witness is legitimately legally binding).
The
Duchess and Sex
Okay, see that lest entry on that list
up above? Well, don't diminish the power of that last crime. The Duchess
straight-up professes that she's got sexual desire aplenty, insisting to
Antonio that "This is flesh and blood, sir, / 'Tis not a figure cut in
alabaster / Kneels at my husband's tomb" (1.1.445-47). She's also not shy
about telling Antonio that, hey, she's already been married once; no need to
pretend she's a blushing virgin who doesn't know what she's doing.
So, the Duchess's sexuality is
definitely a Thing, and you should keep your eye on how the play deals with it.
At one extreme you have Ferdinand, who is famously obsessed with his sister's
sexuality. Once Bosola reports to him that the Duchess has given birth,
Ferdinand has a conniption fit, where he imagines his sister to be a
nightmarish amalgamation of every old-school fear about women's sexuality.
Ferdinand's calling upon the popular
early modern concept of the "lusty widow" (which is something he
literally calls her [1.1.332]), the socially and sexually liberated woman who
disposes of her body as she will… all over the place, with hunky bargemen, in
Ferdinand's imagination. To him, if the Duchess is in any way not totally
celibate and devoid of desire she becomes this really scary, indiscriminate Sex
Monster. This dude's a real crazy.
At the other end of the spectrum, we
have the Duchess herself, who really sees nothing wrong with sex (and her
having it) as long as it happens within marriage. A good example of these two
attitudes clashing is the boudoir scene in Act 3 when Ferdinand sneaks into her
room and confronts her about how she's apparently been having kids with
somebody.
In this scene, the Duchess clearly
thinks that the problem is that Ferdinand doesn't know that she's married, and
keeps trying to bring home the point that, since she has in fact gotten
married, it's all kosher. She doesn't seem to get that Ferdinand's flying off
the handle for a deeper reason: he could care less that she's married, that
she's engaged in any kind of sexual activity that he can't control is more than
enough to warrant the worst possible punishment.
The Duchess as a Ruler
It's not all husbands and babies for the
Duchess, though. We should keep in mind that this woman is in fact a ruler (she
gets referred to as a "prince" multiple times).
While the Duchess is described as being,
in contrast to her dirt bag brothers, a really great person, we kind of have to
wonder about her effectiveness as a prince. She's plenty smart, but is also
really swayed by her passions, and she doesn't sound like a stellar judge of
character—the Duchess way underestimates her brothers' capacity for evil
(thinking that "time will easily / Scatter the tempest"
[1.1.263-64]), and lets Bosola into her court and in on her deepest secret with
minimal work on his part. Maybe a little more caution would have done her some
good.
The only time we really get a solid
indication of her status as a ruler is when things start going downhill: even
though her marriage with Antonio is going well, the secrecy that it requires
has taken a toll her political standing, and her people are spreading nasty
rumors about her. It may sound harsh to come down on the Duchess for being
unpopular, but keep in mind that it's her job to effectively rule her people.
Even though we definitely root for Team Antonio and Duchess (TAD!) you can
easily interpret the Duchess's marrying Antonio as her failing to live up to
her duties as prince.
We should ask ourselves whether the
Duchess is ever "totally a wife" or "totally a prince"—even
in that really intimate bedroom scene with her husband, we have to remember
that we never actually learn the Duchess's name; she's only ever referred to by
her aristocratic title. In our heads, we call her Susie.
We could say that the Duchess's tragedy
is the result of the disastrous collision of her various social roles—her
position relative to her brothers it totally at odds with her position relative
to Antonio (who, don't forget, is both her husband and her employee), to her
children, and to her subjects. But the main point is that, the Duchess born in
a greatly patriarchal society where she was unwelcomed by her devilish
brothers. If her brothers not went against her, she would be in a great
position whether being married or unmarried. But her brothers show her who the
machos are here! It causes her low down from her stable life with Antonio.
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