Puritans and Marriage Contracts

Angelo may have some of the characteristics of the stereotypical Puritan. Historical Puritans of the Jacobean period were, however, much more in favor of marriage than Angelo seems to have been. The Puritan preacher William Gouge, for instance, published an enormous tome on marriage and other household matters, titled Domesticall Duties, in 1622. Gouge, unsurprisingly, affirms that the husband is the ultimate "head" of the household. Less expected, perhaps, is his emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity in marriage. (He argues, for instance, against the common view that adultery in men is less serious than in women -- against the so-called 'double standard'.)

William Gouge is also very clear that the sort of contracts that seem to have existed between Claudio and Juliet, and between Angelo and Mariana, were virtually as binding as marriage itself. Here is what Gouge writes about such contracts in his enormous domestic manual:

Of a Contract, What It is?
... The right making of a firm contract consisteth in two things:
1. In an actual taking of each other for espoused man and wife.
2. In a direct promise of marrying each other within a convenient time.
So as a form of contract may be made to this purpose:
first, the man taking the woman by the hand to say, I, A. take thee, B., to my espoused wife, and do faithfully promise to marry thee in time meet and convenient. And then the woman again taking the man by the hand to say, I, B., to take thee, A., to my espoused husband, do faithfully promise to yield to be married to thee in time meet and convenient. This mutual and actual taking of one another for espoused man and wife in the time present, and a direct promise of marrying one another afterward, setteth such a right and property of the one in the other as cannot be alienated without licence had from the great Judge of heaven, who hath by his divine ordinance settled that right ...

By this formula, it seems then that the "great Judge of heaven" overrules Angelo in the case of Claudio and Juliet, and judges Angelo himself, in his alienation of Mariana.

It's clear too that both parties are supposed to promise, to speak, to make the contract binding. If one recalls the "espousal" passage in The Taming of the Shrew (2.1 -- where Baptista says to Petruchio and Kate, "give me your hands"), only Petruchio speaks and promises, and yet the contract is treated by all as binding. At the end of Measure for Measure, we also hear only Isabella's silence, although she is prompted twice by the Duke to give her hand and her promise. At 5.1.503: "Give me your hand and say you will be mine"; then, at 547-8, perhaps feeling that the public offer of a hand is premature, the Duke proposes, "... if you'll a willing ear incline, / What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine."

At least the Duke ends by recognizing mutuality and reciprocity, but the actual contract is still in question, an if.