Gender and Power in Shakespeare

Gender is inseparable from Shakespeare's treatment of love. Every relationship in the set plays is shaped by patriarchal structures that determine what women can say, do, own, and desire. This lesson examines how Shakespeare dramatises gender and power, exploring women's agency, patriarchal control, the role of marriage, and the ways in which the plays both reinforce and challenge the gender norms of their time. This is essential territory for AO3 (context) and AO5 (critical perspectives), and examiners consistently reward responses that engage with gender as a structural force rather than simply noting that female characters are "strong" or "weak."

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Patriarchal Structures

Shakespeare's plays are set in patriarchal societies — that is, societies in which men hold authority in the family, the state, and the law, and women are legally and socially subordinate.

Key Features of Elizabethan/Jacobean Patriarchy

Feature	Detail
Coverture	Under English law, a married woman had no independent legal identity — her property, rights, and person belonged to her husband
Paternal authority	Fathers controlled their daughters' marriages; a woman who married without her father's consent was legally and socially transgressive
Primogeniture	Inheritance passed to the eldest son; women were typically excluded from inheriting land and titles
The husband's authority	The husband was the legal head of the household; the wife owed him obedience, and he had the legal right to "correct" her
Chastity as currency	A woman's sexual purity was her most valuable social asset; its loss — real or perceived — could destroy her and her family

AO3 — Context: The homily "Of the State of Matrimony" (1563), read regularly in churches, instructed wives to be "obedient and subject to their husbands, as to the Lord." Shakespeare's audiences heard this language as part of their weekly religious observance. When Kate's final speech in The Taming of the Shrew echoes this language, the original audience would have recognised the source immediately.

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Women's Agency in the Set Plays

Despite these constraints, Shakespeare creates female characters who exercise agency in complex and often surprising ways.

Desdemona (Othello)

Desdemona defies her father, chooses her own husband, and speaks publicly in her own defence before the Senate:

"That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world." (1.3.249–51)

The word "violence" is striking — Desdemona describes her own choice as a violent act, acknowledging that it shatters social norms. Her agency, however, is progressively curtailed: by Act 5, she is literally silenced — smothered in her own bed.

AO5 — Critical Interpretations: Carol Thomas Neely argues that Desdemona is not passive but actively fights for her marriage, confronting Othello directly about his changed behaviour. Her submission in the final scene — "Commend me to my kind lord" (5.2.127) — can be read as either saintly forgiveness or the final capitulation of a woman who has internalised patriarchal values.

Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew)

Katherine's "shrewishness" — her refusal to conform to feminine expectations of mildness and obedience — is the play's central concern. Her verbal aggression, physical violence (she strikes both Hortensio and Bianca), and refusal to accept suitors mark her as transgressive:

"I'faith, sir, you shall never need to fear.
Iwis it is not halfway to her heart;
But if it were, doubt not her care should be
To comb your noddle with a three-legged stool." (1.1.62–65)

Katherine's resistance is systematically broken down by Petruchio's "taming" strategy. Whether the play endorses, critiques, or simply dramatises this process is the fundamental critical question.

Her final speech — a 44-line declaration of wifely obedience — has generated more critical debate than almost any other passage in Shakespeare:

"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land." (5.2.146–49)

The speech echoes the language of conduct books and religious homilies. Its meaning depends entirely on how it is delivered — and the text provides no definitive guidance.

Isabella (Measure for Measure)

Isabella is about to enter a convent when the play begins — she is choosing a life of religious devotion over marriage and sexuality. Her eloquent defence of her brother's life (2.2) and her passionate rejection of Angelo's proposition (2.4) make her one of Shakespeare's most rhetorically powerful women: