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The English poet Algernon Swinburne once said that Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing was made up of “tragic implications counterbalanced with hilarity.” He was not wrong. 

Much Ado, one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies still to this day, makes audiences laugh even though it is set in a heavily patriarchal world that is focused (obsessed??) with male honor and shame, and one quick to condemn women—women who are primarily valued for their chastity.

Most of the men, both protagonists and antagonists, share an underlying and often overflowing anxiety regarding female fidelity. Cuckoldry, it seems, is the worst that could ever befall them. The villainous Don John sees any would-be husband as a fool who “betroths himself to unquietness” (1.3.41). In Shakespeare’s original play, when Don Pedro identifies Hero as Leonato’s daughter, Leonato jokingly responds that “Her mother hath many times told [him] so” (1.1.99). And even the dashing Benedick finds himself fixated on fidelity and swears to “live a bachelor” (1.1.234) because he “will not do [women] the wrong to mistrust any,” and so will do himself “the right to trust none” (1.1.231-3).  

In this world of nervous and distrustful men, we find the fiercely independent Beatrice and her dutiful cousin Hero. While the latter is excited and hopeful at the prospect of marriage, Beatrice wants nothing to do with men. She not only declares publicly that she prays God “Send [her] no husband” (2.1.25), but is not interested in a beloved, as she notes to Benedick, “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me” (1.1.124-6). 

Her reason for refusal is not distrust at all, but rather the preservation of her freedom. Beatrice gives Leonato a very witty yet culturally layered response when he notes he hopes to see her married someday: “Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?” (2.1.55-7). And over-mastery was, regrettably, central to many marriages. Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769) consolidates laws that had been in effect for centuries, including those pertaining to marriage. Not only did a woman swear to obey her husband in all things, but everything she owned passed into his hands. In fact, her individuality ceased to be in the eyes of the law: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage.” And because men were to answer for their wives’ “misbehavior” legally, they were also allowed to exercise “moderate correction,” which included chastisement, restraint, and even physical punishment. 

No thank you, says Beatrice. Living in her uncle’s household has provided her with the benefit of having more liberty than usually granted to a young woman of her station during the Early Modern period. She has a say in her life choices. Leonato is more open minded than most and seemingly a romantic. He wants a love match for his optimistic daughter and his pragmatic niece, and not a marriage of convenience. 

But a love match requires trust and equality. And that’s where things get complicated. Trust implies a relinquishing of control on either side of the union. Men’s fixation on infidelity underscores their fear of losing control of their wives—a control granted to them by the law. For a woman, marriage meant giving up control over her own self, and in such a life-changing choice it was best to trust the man they were to marry. 

Shakespeare typically solves this with the model of equality in love. His most famous couples have been truly equals (yes, including the Macbeths). While Much Ado fixates so much on men who are fixated on the possibility of infidelity, the story is really about the women. We see their journey through hope, love, tears, and, above all, choice. For Beatrice and Hero to find their happy-ever-after requisite of a romantic comedy, they have to trust the men they choose, and for that, they have to choose their equal.