‘To visit the sick court’: Misogyny as Disease in Swetnam the Woman-Hater

Summary

Swetnam The Woman-Hater (performed 1617–19; published 1620) works very hard to publicise its connection to the eponymous character's namesake, Joseph Swetnam, and to the debate about women to which he contributed so vociferously. The paratext of the 1620 edition advertises the play's participation in contemporary discussions about the antagonism between the sexes: the complete title is Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women; the titlepage engraving portrays Swetnam's trial by a female court; and the prologue foregrounds the antagonism between the sexes and the ‘dayes tryall’ of ‘we, poore women’ (pro. 4, 3). Given that Swetnam only appears in six of the play's nineteen scenes, this may seem like a slightly deceptive marketing strategy intended to capitalise upon Swetnam's notoriety so that sales of printed copies and theatre admissions would increase. But whereas emphasising links to Swetnam is indeed clever advertising, it is not dishonest. In this essay I contend that Swetnam offers a profound meditation on the context and tenor of the debate about women in which the play participates and on the type of society necessary for such debate to flourish. Drawing on a foundational principle of early modern kingship, that the monarch's vice or virtue is reflected in his subjects, and coupling this with contemporaneous medical, humoural theory, the play demonstrates that an ill monarch results in a sick court in which ailing characters thrive and diseases proliferate. King Atticus's excessive grief unbalances his humours and his society, which is in turn afflicted by imbalances that manifest themselves most clearly in antagonism between the sexes and in misogyny, a mind-set that is pathologised as a medical condition in the play. Indeed, the king's corporeal and moral misbalance is reflected most obviously in the gender disharmony in the play. At the end of the play, Sicily's return to political stability is signalled by the restoration of balance: the king's humoural equilibrium returns; mercy and justice are balanced; and women and men, femininity and masculinity, coexist harmoniously.

After providing a brief overview of the play's sources, this essay analyses Atticus's melancholy, arguing that it is a disease with socio-political implications because it infects the king's body and the body politic.