In this article, we’ll be discussing a number of topics and their implications in Shakespeare’s time. Specifically, we’ll focus on cuckolds, bastards, and women, and their positions in society.

Cuckolds

A cuckold is a deceived husband, usually one who doesn’t yet know of his wife’s infidelity. The word comes from ‘cuckoo,’ the bird who takes over the nest of a bird of a different sort, kicks out the eggs laid there and puts its own eggs to be hatched and fed by the deluded original parent. The essence of the story is that the supposed parent of the cuckoo’s chicks, the cuckolded father, is unaware of the betrayal.

There are many jokes in Shakespeare about cuckolds, mostly using the idea of ‘horns.’ There are several reasons given for this association of ideas: one is that an animal with horns, obviously masculine, is not aware of the horns on his head. Another, that the idea comes from the myth of the rape of Europa, a nymph abducted by Jove in the likeness of a horned bull. Or, that the rightful destination of the husband’s ‘horn,’ (his ‘pond’ as Leontes calls his wife, has been ‘fished’) is usurped by a stranger.

Because a father can never be completely sure that his wife’s child is truly his own (no DNA tests before the 1980s) the only way he can be secure is to marry a virgin, then keep his wife away from any other man. The first male child is the important one because inheritance passes to the eldest son. This rule means that the family land and name are preserved. In royal families this is of crucial importance, where doubt of paternity leads to violent revolution.

Gesturing With ‘Horns’

The rude gesture of one or two fingers is connected to horns; people still find it funny to stick two fingers up behind a man’s head in a photo, the joke being that he doesn’t know that he has suddenly ‘grown horns on his head.’ The modern joker typically does not recognize the cuckold element of the insult. In some cultures the finger gesture is an insult to be revenged by death, as in early scenes of Romeo and Juliet.

Women

The concept of woman as property of man, first of her father, then of her husband, even as a widow ruled by her son, is still maintained in many cultures. It is difficult, I find, for women now to play this admired slavery in Shakespeare’s plays. If we go against it then we are not being true to the story. Maybe the solution is to find the dignity and power of the female character while understanding without approval the misogyny (and the anti-semitism and racism) of Shakespeare’s times.

The question asked of women is Hamlet’s, ‘are you honest?’  Meaning, ‘are you chaste/ a virgin/ a woman who isn’t interested in sex?’ (Hamlet means sexual disinterest even in marriage. See Posthumous’ praise of Imogen’s virginal reluctance to make love with him).

The honour of a man includes his courage, integrity, intelligence, family tradition. The honour of a woman is only in her sexual condition, in relation to whichever man is her master at that time of her life.

Married Woman’s Property Act of 1882

Until the Married Woman’s Property Act of 1882, everything a woman owned, including her body and her children, belonged to her husband. Her position in law was that of an imbecile with no legal, financial or human rights. I can remember my mother, born in 1902, telling me that her father, my grandfather, born around 1867, who I remember very well, thought that the Married Women’s Property Act was a disaster, over-turning the natural order of society. So, you see, this is all quite recent and we have a long way to go yet before we have equality!

Bastards

‘Fine word ILLEGITIMATE!’ as the bastard Edmund says in King Lear. An illegitimate son (daughters don’t count at all) is branded by his birth as an illegal, someone who should not have been born at all, the result of sin (usually the woman’s fault) who cannot inherit, who has no place in the family or society, who was born a villain… no wonder Edmund was furious at this injustice!

Royal bastards, of course, were exceptions to this rule. They were usually called ‘Fitz’ = son of (from the French ‘fils’) followed by their father, the king’s, name. In ‘King John’ the Bastard ( the ‘natural son’ of King Richard the Lionheart) is shown as a heroic character, in contrast to his wicked uncle King John.

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