I am very interested in the Duchess, overall, as a character. She is just a woman, and in this time period women were still not given much power. Granted, she is a duchess, but her power is limited. It astounds me the level of authority the Duchess takes for herself. What really intrigues me in this play is how the she handles her wedding with Antonio. She has an assertive, strong personality—so much so that she ignored normal social mores for weddings and she conducted her own marriage with Antonio. She decides to go against her brothers’ adamant please that she not remarry, and weds Antonio anyway (even though she is not a widow, nor virgin!). She then risks having children out of wedlock (at least it appears this way), rather than expose her marriage to Antonio, a man of slightly lower class.

I chose an excerpt from the poem below to demonstrate the importance and weight marriages had in the early modern period, and how the fact that the Duchess chose to forego this tradition reveals her strong personality. This poem expresses the positive aura that weddings and wedding feasts had in the time period, especially with the traditional marriage of a man and a female virgin. The speaker is describing a very traditional ceremony that celebrates the event of a female virgin marrying. The focus remains on the bride throughout the poem, making a point to highlight the virgin’s youth and beauty—two things the Duchess once had, but is perhaps now losing (which almost does not matter, considering the Duchess gave up having a formal ceremony at all).

Descriptio Egredientis Sponsae.

At length comes forth the Bride (in all parts rare)*
Full ripe for man (of Venus the iust care:)
A Virgins face, a Virgins chast active
She weares. Now modest blushes kindle fire
Within her bashfull cheeke, which by degrees
Growes still more hot, and warmes all that she sees.
The youthfull fri•, dispersed here and there,
On tip-toe mooue, to see this starre appeare,
And rise with such refulgence: on each hand
The aged Fathers and the Matrons stand,
And make a reuerent Lane for her to passe:
She makes them thinke vpon the time that was,
Their prime, their youth, their strength (now gone and wasted)
And Nuptiall sweets, which they before ha•e tasted.
…
But she in youth, strength, state maiesticall,
In vntoucht puritie, pulchritude, all
That beautifies the Sex. Thus is the Bride
Brought to the place, where she must now reside.


Poem taken from the Seventh book from:
Gynaikeion: or, Nine bookes of various history. Concerninge women inscribed by ye names of ye nine Muses. Written by Thom: Heywoode.Heywood, Thomas, d. 1641.London: Printed by Adam Islip, 1624.
http://name.umdl.umich.edu/A03206.0001.001