Carol Neeely Misogyny

In her book Broken Nuptials: Wooing and Wedding in Shakespeare's Comedies, Carol Neely argues that "in Shakespearean comedy, if wooing is to lead to a wedding ceremony and consummation of the marriage...misogyny must be exorcised, romantic idealizing affection must be experienced and qualified," however, that is not true; The male characters project their misogynistic tendencies—such as idealizing women who are chaste, loyal, and modest, and holding all other women to those standards, on female characters—before, and after marriage. Most women, such as Hero, are forced to yield to the men but, Beatrice avoids the expected fate of a wife by retaining her wit and constantly asserting herself.

In the case of Benedick, he is not married yet,

and uses the aforementioned tactics to avoid marriage. When he learns that Claudio wants to pursue Hero, he says, "shall I never see a bachelor of three-score again?...thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays." (1.1 156-159). His questioning of Claudio's decision and declaration of the future that awaits Claudio if he goes through with it, makes it clear that Benedick believes the ideal situation for men is remain bachelors. Benedick's belief is founded on the idea that getting married forces men to give up their freedom. Benedick resists Claudio's desire to marry because he believes it threatens his own bachelor status. For him, one man's marriage, diminishes the population of the bachelors and thus, power is transferred from men to women. Benedick's misogynistic feelings toward women are shown through the following statement: "That a woman conceived me, I thank her, that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks, but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead …. all women shall pardon me" (1.1 189-192). This shows that he has no respect for women beyond what they can provide for him (birthing and raising him), let alone, any desire to marry one. Despite Benedick's resistance, Claudio warns him, "In time, the savage bull doth bear the yoke" (1.1 256), foreshadowing, his eventual marriage. This adamant resistance to marriage in the play is not only limited to men.

Before Claudio is in a relationship with Hero, he tries to exert control over her by making assumptions about her before even speaking to her.

Initially, it seems that Claudio triumphs over Hero in the first wedding scene because he shames her based on false information and gets away with it at the time. Talking to Benedick and Don Pedro about his affection for Hero, Claudio says, "Is she not a modest young lady" (1.1 128) and "In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that/ ever I looked on (1.1 148-149). Claudio holds Hero to a standard despite knowing nothing about her. In 'The Sign and Semblance of Her Honor': Reading Gender Difference in Much Ado about Nothing, Carol Cook says that, "The masculine, in the world of the play, is the place of speaking and reading subjects, of manipulators and interpreters of signs" (Cook 190). Hero is interpreted by Claudio before and during her marriage, as well as, manipulated by Don Jon and Borachio when they scheme against her to make her seem like she cheated on Claudio. Before Don Jon even presents "evidence" to Claudio that Hero cheated, Claudio says, "Tomorrow in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her" (3.3 117-118). Despite lack of a defense from Hero, Claudio plans to immediately shame her at the wedding if Don John confirms what he says before him. Claudio's hast to humiliate Hero is indicative of the distrust of women inherent in the men in Messina. Don Pedro adds fuel to the fire by telling Claudio, "I will

join with thee to disgrace her" because he helped arrange the marriage (3.3 119-120). Before the wedding takes place, both men perceive Hero as guilty.

When the wedding actually takes place, it is a "portrayal of patriarchy at its splendor" (Ajjab 42) because Hero's guilt, as well as her innocence, is deemed by men.

Claudio calls Hero out on her alleged transgressions by attacking his image of her. He says, "All you that see her, that she were a maid, By these exterior shows? But she is none. She knows the heat of a luxurious bed. Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty" (4.1 39-42). He takes her blushing to mean that she is guilty and tries to convince the bystanders of that. Claudio goes as far as to convince Hero's father, Leonato that she is guilty as well. Leonato, instead of keeping in mind what he knows about his daughter, doubts her, and says "Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, strike at thy life" (4.1 134-135) if she did what she's being accused of. Hero's innocence is placed in the hands of a male, the friar, and she is interpreted by him as well. He deems her innocent because he looks at her and says he knows the difference between an innocent and a guilty

face.

Claudio walks away victorious after shaming Hero. His "victory" is supposedly reversed by his penance, marrying Leonato's niece. Cook claims that, "Claudio's 'narcissistic instrumentality' is overcome in his symbolic penance at Hero's tomb and his acceptance of an unknown bride," however, Claudio's change is only temporary, not permanent (Cook 186). When Claudio finds out Hero is innocent and believes she died because of his accusations, he says, "Sweet Hero, now they image doth appear/ In the rare semblance that I loved it first" (5.1 262-263). The words "I first loved it," show that Claudio has come back to his idealized version of Hero; he still does not care about who she is really is.

Beyond courtship and the act of getting married, the men still hold women to their values after the wedding day, When the Prince sees Hero and asks Leonato if that is his daughter, Leonato responds, "her mother hath many times told me so" (1.1 103). Although he is joking, Leonato's joke plays on the men of Messina's greatest underlying fear, being cuckolded. This fear represents the mistrust that the men in marriages have toward their wives. Neely says "the male characters in the play resist marriage by [defending] themselves against women and [protecting] their own self-esteem by aggressive misogyny or witty idealization" (Neely 32). Surprisingly, as shown by Leonato's comment, the men in the play still defend themselves against women even after marriage.

In her marriage to Benedict, Beatrice is able to retain her power, despite threats to it. The first signs of Beatrice's freedom and power being at risk is after she finds out Claudio and Hero are getting married and she shows her yearning for love saying, "Thus goes everyone/ to the world but I" (2.1 311-312). Thus, Muhammed Ayub Jajja's claim, in his article Shakespeare's Comedies: A Feminist Perspective, that "the ultimate destiny of any woman is marriage appears to ring true (Jajja 41). When Hero and Ursula attack her pride in their plot to get Beatrice and Benedick married, Beatrice says, "Can thus be true? Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?... I will requite thee, taming my wild heart to thy loving hand" (3.2 113-118). Beatrice's claim that she will "tame" herself for Benedick is a step toward her fear of being overpowered in marriage coming into fruition. Benedick, upon hearing Don Pedro and the Prince condemn his attachment to remaining a bachelor, has a similar change of heart as Beatrice and says, "I have railed so long against marriage, but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age" (2.3 239-240). Jajja's claim that women are destined for marriage does not cover the whole truth, both men and women in the play are destined for marriage. Benedick, like Beatrice, must marry too.

Though Beatrice thinks that she will be forced to tame herself in marrying Benedick, as the play goes on it is clear that no such thing will take place. In his article Hush'd on Purpose to Grace Harmony: Wives and Silence in Much Ado About Nothing, Michael D. Friedman says, "one can easily imagine the reticent Hero fulfilling [a] subdued role in her marriage to Claudio, but...Beatrice seems to be temperamentally unsuited to such submission" (Friedman 350). When Claudio accuses Hero of being unfaithful, Beatrice immediately angered and wants to seek revenge. She tells Benedick, "O God, that I were a man! I/ would eat his heart in the marketplace" (4.1 302-303). Her desire to avenge her cousin in this manner is not indicative of a newly tamed Beatrice, but rather, the same unruly behavior common to Beatrice. In the same time span that she gives Benedict the demand to kill Claudio, she tells him, "I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to/protest" (4.1 183-184). Her desire to have Claudio killed coinciding with her profession of her love for Benedick shows that she does not have to tame herself for marriage; her old mannerisms can coexist with her new love. Another example of Beatrice retaining her power, is the fact that she is still able to exercise her wit with Benedict. When Beatrice finds out that Bendick merely talked to Claudio, after she asked him to kill him, she says, "Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is/ but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome" (5.2 52-53). She is still capable of engaging in witty banter with Benedict. Jajja claims that "the weight of the patriarchy defeats [Beatrice] and she ultimately succumbs to the patriarchal values," however, as shown, she is not defeated (Jajja 41). Many people cite the last scene of the play in which Benedick kisses Beatrice and says, "Peace! I will stop your mouth" as evidence of him taking her power away for good and exerting control over her (5.4 97). However, the aforementioned evidence contradicts this claim; Beatrice is only hushed in this moment, not permanently. Cook claims that "Beatrice sacrifices the verbal mastery which constitutes her power in exchange for a hushed existence as Benedick's wife," but Beatrice only forfeits her wit in the public eye (351). Behind closed doors, in the privacy of just her and Benedick, she is presumably not hushed.

The fact that Beatrice maintains her power in her marriage calls into question why she is able to do so. The answer lies in the fact that Beatrice constantly asserts herself. When her uncle tells her that she will never get married if she continues to be so harsh, she asks, ""would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered" (2.1 60-61). Beatrice will not be submissive. Additionally, she tries to help Hero maintain some control in the marriage process by telling her that she understands that her cousin must follow her father's wishes and marry who he says but, "let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me'" (2.1 52-56). This shows her attempt to help Hero enter her marriage not feeling and being powerless. Not only does fight for herself, she fights for other women to not be dominated and overshadowed in their marriages.