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Macbeth's Usurping Wife

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Roland Mushat Frye
Roland Mushat Frye*
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Extract

The moral character of Lady Macbeth has been thoroughly castigated and there is no need to restate an established case. In regard to her ethical and spiritual situation, no one can question the cardinal importance of the inhumanity of the ‘fiend-like queen', and of the crimes plotted and committed after her great soliloquy-prayer 'invoking the Powers of Hell to take possession of her'. Granting the pre-eminence of these sins in Lady Macbeth, I should like to develop here a lesser theme of a lesser evil which Shakespeare has carefully incorporated into her character. This evil consists in Lady Macbeth's usurping, as a wife, that conjugal authority which Shakespeare's age regarded as naturally and irrevocably assigned to the husband.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance News , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Summer 1955 , pp. 102 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 1955

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References

1 Dover Wilson, J., ed. Macbeth (Cambridge, 1947), p. lvi.Google Scholar All Shakespearean citations are from this text.

2 See, e.g., Eph. 5:22-24; I Pet- 3:1, 5.

3 See, e.g., Camden, Carroll, The Elizabethan Woman (New York, 1952), pp. 102, 110,121,122,246,259,266.Google Scholar

4 Henry Bullinger, The Third Decade (Cambridge, Parker Society, 1850), p. 405;

Roger Hacket, Two Fruitfull Sermons (London, 1607), p. 14; R[obert] C[leaver], A Godly Form of Householde Government (London, F. Kingston f. T. Man, 1598), p. 172.

5 Bp. Abbot, Robert, A Wedding Sermon (London, 1608), p. 58.Google Scholar See also Austin, William, HaecHomo (London, 1639), pp. 43-44Google Scholar; C[leaver], p. 207; Dillingham, Francis, Christian Oeconomy or Household Government (London, 1609)Google Scholar, sig. I7; Donne, John, Works (London, 1839), IV, p. 29 Google Scholar; Griffith, Matthew, Bethel: or a Forme for Families (London, 1634), p. 289 Google Scholar; and Bp. John King, Vitis Palatina. A Sermon ... Preached at Whitehall… after the Mariage ofthe Ladie Elizabeth her Grace (London, 1614),p. 26.

6 [Robert Wilkinson] The Merchant Roy all: A Sermon Preached at White-Hall… 1607, ed. Stanley Pargellis (Herrin, 111. 1945), p. 32; and Francis Meres, Gods Arithmeticke (London, 1597), sig. C4V.

7 Henrie Smith, A Preparatiue to Marriage (London, T. Orwin f. T. Man, 1591), pp. 57-58; and Meres, sigs. C7-C7V.

8 Gataker, Thomas, Marriage Duties (London, 1620), p. 15.Google Scholar

9 P[hilip] S[tubbs], A Christal Glassefor Christian Women (London, 1592), sig. A3.

10 Gataker, p. 16.

11 Certain Sermons or Homelies Appointed to be Read in Churches (Oxford, 1822), p. 469.

12 Gataker, p. 10.

13 William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man, ed. Richard Lovett (London, n.d.), pp. 82-83; and C[leaver], pp. 234-235.

14 Bp. Latimer, Hugh, Sermons (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1844), pp. 252-53.Google Scholar

15 Tyndale, , Doctrinal Treatises (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1848), p. 334.Google Scholar

16 Quarles, Francis, Hadassa, or the History of Queene Ester (London, 1621)Google Scholar, sig. Ei.

17 Meres, sig. C5.

18 More, George, Principles for Yong Princes (London, 1629), p . 38.Google Scholar

19 A Discourse of the Married and Single Life (London, 1621), sig. A6v.