Love Tests in Shakespeare (consolidating some thoughts for a seminar paper)

For this blog post, like a few other people are doing, I’m going to free-write for a bit on my upcoming seminar paper (Shakespeare). Currently, I’m thinking about how love tests function in Shakespeare’s works.

Intentional tests of love appear most notable in Cymbeline and Lear. More general accusations of a woman’s infidelity appear in Othello, Much Ado, and Winter’s Tale. Pericles and Measure for Measure both show examples of women who have their chastity tested and prevail, although no accusations are actually raised against them. I will, obviously, not be writing on all of these papers.

What’s notable here is the interplay of guilt and innocence. A woman’s virtue can be called into question at any time, with or without reason. It falls on the woman both to prove and defend her chastity, and on her husband to determine when the proof is adequate.  The ongoing possibility of the woman’s guilt—and the fact that it hinges solely on the husband’s discretion—underscores the power dynamic. Any time that he chooses, the husband or groom can put his wife on the defensive, nullify the relationship, or illigitimize children. This collides with the fact that, in every single instance of infidelity shown, the woman is always innocent. More so, whether or not she survives to the end of the play, her faith is invariably proven. The only exceptions to this is Regan and Goneril, the sisters in Lear who pass a (familial) love test when, in fact, their intentions are not pure.

In other words, the love test necessarily yields false results. And yet, within each work, both tests of faith and accusations against a woman’s faithfulness are always treated as serious matters worth investigating.

In the romances and comedies, the fact of the woman’s innocence could be seen as a way of reassuring the audience at the end by bringing everything back into the realm of the familiar. That is to say, the fact of the woman’s innocence brings her back into line. No matter what trouble has been caused, no actual social norms are subverted by the woman. She herself has challenged nothing and broken no rules. Thus, the plot can end with the restoration of her marriage and the passage of her sexual agency from either herself (in the cases where she is tested but not accused) or another man (in the cases where she is falsely accused) back to her husband.

In the case of tragedies, it works to strip the woman of her agency in a similar manner. In this case, it removes the woman’s guilt in her own deteriorating circumstances and eventual death. The love test is something that is done to her. If she fails in spite of her faith and innocence, it is the fault of the man who judged her. He is always in control of her sexual agency, and she never actually acts against him. Since she is not and has never been guilty, she is merely the victim of male agency.

Since I’m interested in DH and tangentially involved with the games lab, I also wanted to think about how to game the love test, and what its parameters are. First and foremost, is the matter of a win condition. The woman presumably loses if she either dies, is publicly shamed, disavowed, or actually forced to give up her chastity. It could be argued whether or not it should be considered a loss to be maneuvered into an unwanted union, or to continue to be married to a man with the poor sense to test her (and who has probably humiliated her in the process). However, she never wins.

Predating Shakespeare’s work, love tests appeared in the tale of Griselda (retold in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) and were a staple of chivalric romance. In Don Quixote, Cervantes’s “Tale of Foolish Curiosity” delivers a sharp deconstruction of the love test. Notably, in Griselda’s story and “Tale of Foolish Curiosity,” the end of the test is at the husband’s discretion and, in both cases, he repeatedly questions whether his wife has truly proven herself, or if he simply hasn’t pushed hard enough. In other words, the husband reserves the right to continue testing the wife to his satisfaction. If he decides that her performance is unsatisfactory at any point, he always has the option to reopen the matter and test her again.

It is possible to provide proof that a woman is not chaste, but she can never be proven chaste. Her chastity is always in question. (This may tie into the anxiety surrounding legitimacy and control).

The other important question when considering the love test as a game is the win and loss conditions for the man. His goal is to prove the chastity of his wife. He wins if she is proven to be faithful, and he loses if she isn’t. His stakes are much lower than hers, although it should be considered that if he loses, he also loses the legitimacy of his own children and thus, his family line unless he can remarry (which is likely to lead to a succession crisis).

What’s interesting here is that once the game has started, since the woman can never be proven innocent, neither she nor her husband can actually win. More so, the husband’s actions are always against the wife. His role is to prove her guilty or, if she has not been unfaithful, to convince her to become unfaithful—in other words, to do everything in his power to ensure that he loses. Meanwhile, the game is necessarily initiated by the husband. For the love test to take place, he must intentionally enter into an unwinnable situation and do everything in his power to lose.

It is, then, deeply counter-intuitive both as a game, and as a narrative device, although I haven’t yet been able to get at why they are treated as viable options.