"The entrance into some prison": Marriage and Divorce in Early Modern English Drama

This dissertation examines twelve different early modern English plays and therelationship between law and emotion that the plays represent. I draw on a variety of playwrights and genres to argue that the emotional states of characters in the plays are made visible when they litigate their marriages or discuss their marriages in legal terms and metaphors. However, these plays show how the law functions as a “straightening device” (as Sara Ahmed uses and defines the term) to legally force characters into or to remain in a marriage. As characters are straightened into marriage, the plays’ representation of those characters demonstrates how marriage as a legal institution is represented and critiqued. My argument is significant for a few major reasons: first, it brings together a more holistic representation of marriage law on stage, since I include major playwrights (Shakespeare), female playwrights (Margaret Cavendish and Elizabeth Cary), and playwrights closely associated with the legal world (John Ford and John Webster). Second, it works to connect the areas of law and literature with the history of emotion, as it analyzes how using the law lets characters express their emotional states. Finally, my project considers more broadly how the law, especially marriage, operates as an institution and how that institution is critiqued. I use theorists like Michel Foucault and Sara Ahmed, early modern scholars like Frances Dolan, and law and literature scholars like Subha Mukherji, in order to argue that marriage is not a concrete or uniform institution, and its representation onstage allows space for differing voices and experiences. Overall, this contributes to a better understanding of the history of marriage as a legal institution.