Non-Zero-Sum Frame: The Bed Trick in Measure for Measure
The newly appointed interim Duke of Vienna has decided to enforce the “strict statutes and most biting laws” that were ignored over the course of the actual Duke’s last fourteen years of rule (1.1.20). One such law prohibits sexual congress outside of the bounds of marriage, and thus Claudio is sentenced to death for impregnating his fiancée.
As with many Shakespearean comedies, the introduction of a dire, life-or-death problem also makes way for hijinks to ensue in Measure for Measure: the true Duke pretends to be a friar as he observes Angelo and meddles in the upcoming proceedings; Isabella leaves her nunnery and convinces Mariana to secretly sleep with the hypocritical, lusty Angelo in her place to save Claudio; a pirate dies at a perfectly convenient time. The result of these ‘comedic’ moments is a non-zero-sum game in which Angelo is forced to marry his ex-fiancée Mariana, who he initially abandoned after her dowry was lost at sea, because he was tricked into sleeping with her. In this short essay, I will examine the relationships between the partnered characters in Measure for Measure in order to uncover the comparative true horror of the bed trick that takes place in advance of Act V, scene i.
Before Mariana attends Isabella’s rendezvous with Angelo in the latter woman’s place, the audience of the play is made aware of the sexual encounters of myriad characters on stage. From early on, we learn that Claudio has impregnated Juliet, an act that is evidenced by her body and also admitted to directly by Claudio: “Thus stands it with me: upon a true contract / I got possession of Julietta’s bed. / You know the lady. She is fast my wife, / Save that we do the denunciation lack / Of outward order” (1.2.142–6). Later, Juliet refers to their congress as mutual and explains to the Duke (as the Friar) that they love one another.
Their relationship is thus the least punishable of any that are punished in the play, as their union was consensual and remains so, even though Juliet repents the sin of premarital sex in the presence of the Duke. Much of the irony of the play stems from this first couple being chosen by Angelo for dire punishment out of any of the other couples whose sexual exploits are made apparent as the play progresses: the women of Mistress Overdone’s brothel and their customers, Lucio and Kate, and Angelo and Mariana.
Myriad other characters are arrested for inappropriate conduct besides Claudio, many of whom are fairly incidental to the plot. Pompey is arrested for bringing customers to Mistress Overdone’s brothel, a business that is suffering due to a proclamation that all bawd houses outside of the city proper are to be shut down. The relationships between the prostitutes at the brothel and their clientele are more nuanced than the relationship between Claudio and Juliet, two consenting adults who intend to be married and are already joined in love. Though Pompey is arrested for his role in recruitment, the encounters that take place within the brothel are still somewhat consensual, especially on the part of the men who frequent there.
The concept of consent in a brothel is extremely nuanced, and I am tempted to examine the brothel scenes with a presentist lens and search for textual evidence of the sex workers’ complete approval of each sexual act they engage in; instead, I categorize the brothel and its participants as surface-level consenting, less loving than Claudio and Juliet but more acceptable than Angelo and Mariana. Even Lucio’s relationship with Kate Keepdown can be categorized as such, as each was a knowing participant in the sex that they had with one another, an act that is ‘resolved’ by the Duke sentencing him to marry “whom he begot with child” during the play’s final act (585).
Compared to the other pairings in Measure for Measure, the coupling of Mariana and Angelo is the least consensual and thus the most reprehensible. It is true that Angelo is a hypocrite for pursuing Isabella and an ignoble character for using her love for her brother as a way to sleep with her. He may be considered especially despicable for seeking to take the virginity of a would-be nun who was only able to agree to the congress with “with whispering and most guilty diligence” (4.1.38). Still, regardless of his comportment both before and after the meeting in the garden (after all, he does not pardon Claudio even after having had sex with who he believes to be Isabella), he is not deserving of the bed trick. The other relationships in the play establish grounds for consent that are completely eschewed here, which I argue would be considered objectionable in every instance outside of the realm of the Shakespearean comedy.
Rather than simply rectifying the wrongs of an abandoned engagement, the bed trick retroactively robs Angelo of autonomy upon his discovery of it: “I did but smile till now. / Now, good my lord, give me the scope of justice” (5.1.265–6).
It is worth noting that the marriage agreement between Mariana and Angelo was treated (at least by the latter party) as a transaction that, when it fell through, was justly abandoned by Angelo. The Duke (as the Friar) explains to Isabella in Act III, scene i that Angelo “Left her in her tears and dried not one / of them with his comfort, swallowed his vows / whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonor” as a public way of recusing himself from the recently de-dowry’d union (251–3). However dishonorable it was for Angelo to do so, the fact remains that a bed trick is non-consensual and thus amoral, even though it is not perceived as such by the characters within the genre of Shakespearean comedy.
This is the crime that deserves punishment: not the coupling that occurs between two (apparently) consenting parties in a brothel, and certainly not Claudio and Juliet’s mutual love.
References:
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Yale University Press, 1917.
