WHAT DID SHAKESPEARE THINK ABOUT WIVES?

WHAT DID SHAKESPEARE THINK ABOUT WIVES? Stephen Greenblatt argues in WILL IN THE WORLD (highly recommended) that Shakespeare had an unfavorable view of wives and marriage. He says that “in the great succession of comedies that Shakespeare wrote in the latter half of the 1590’s…there is scarcely a single pair of lovers who seem deeply, inwardly suited for one another.” (pages 135-136). And again, “Shakespeare’s imagination did not easily conjure up a couple with long-term prospects for happiness.” (page 134). And the exceptions are worse. “There are two significant exceptions to Shakespeare’s unwillingness or inability to imagine a married couple in a relationship of sustained intimacy, but they are unnervingly strange: Gertrude and Claudius in HAMLET and the Macbeths.” (page 137). Greenblatt argues that Shakespeare’s portrayed marriage unfavorably because his own marriage was unhappy. But where are the Merry Wives, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, in this discussion of marriage? Greenblatt does not consider the only wives in Shakespeare who are title characters and who are contemporaries. THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR on the whole presents a very favorable view of Elizabethan wives. The wives are good humored, love their husbands and are loyal to them.