The Choice to Starve in

Adultery shatters the sacramental bond of marriage, and generally, results in separation of romantic partners. In contrast, however, Thomas Heywood reports in Gunaikeion or, Nine Books of Various History, “By Solons Lawes, a man was permitted to kill them both in the act, that he found them” (433). Heywood’s collection evaluates different types of women, such as goddesses, wantons, chaste and virtuous wives, incestuous women, and adulterous wives. His account on the treatment and punishment of these women was published in 1624, and nevertheless, contains some criteria that would not be tolerated by society and authorities in the twenty-first century. Several years before Gunaikeion or, Nine Books of Various History was published, Heywood’s “best play,” as agreed upon by critics, was performed and first published in 1607 (Bryan 9). Heywood utilizes the sinful act of adultery in his domestic tragedy A Woman Killed with Kindness, but instead of exercising the punishment he reports in Gunaikeion or, Nine Books of Various History, Anne Frankford is killed with kindness (Heywood 400). Frankford did not consult “ecclestical justice” about his wife’s adultery, as critic Jennifer Panek suggests a husband of the early seventeenth century would be inclined to do, but does, however, alienate Anne from his household (357). In retaliation to Frankford’s punishment, Anne chooses to starve herself. In this climatic moment of A Woman Killed with Kindness, critics have analyzed and made bold effort to explain Anne’s decision to self-starve, but it is Heywood who offers the most convincing evidence as to how audiences would have understood and perceived her choice.