Marriage bed manoeuvrings: sociopolitical functions of the bed in the 1647 folio text of John Fletcher’s The Woman’s Prize, Or The Tamer Tamed

Abstract

This essay explores the use of the prop bed in the 1647 Folio text of John Fletcher’s The Woman’s Prize, Or The Tamer Tamed (1610), and the manner in which the object becomes an emblem of female marital control. It argues that Livia’s manipulation of the bed serves as the means by which she subverts the traditional patriarchal negotiation of marriage. Informing this reading is an examination of the seemingly antithetical embrace of marriage and death in early modern culture as laid out in the 1559 Book of Common Prayer’s service of matrimony, and reinforced in visual culture in circulation at the time; indeed it is from her supposed sickbed that Livia arranges her match to the man of her choice. In doing so, Fletcher presents an onstage version of the bedtrick. Yet while the Folio presents this subversive use of the bed, it is ironically Livia’s adherence to a number of ideal components of the marriage ritual, including the signing of a contract, the observation of a kind of wedding-night bedding ceremony, and the participation of the wider family and community in the event as witnesses, which serves to secure the legitimacy of the match in the end.