Proper Men and Fallen Women: The Unprotectedness of Wives in Othello

Abstract

A surprisingly large number of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays represent or culminate in the murder of a wife, the reason cited almost always being her infidelity.\u27 The plays construct these murders, often led up to by beating and torture of the wife, as tragedy, yet endorse them as a form of justice. These tragedies have come to be known as domestic tragedies, suggesting that the events are private, springing from a familial relationship, unlike tragedies which involve political murders and take place in the public sphere. An unresolved contradiction is evident in the titles of these plays which signal the intention to preach a public sermon to women, for example, Women Beware Women, A Woman Killed with Kindness, and A Warning to Fair Women. In Othello, this contradiction is forced to the surface, as the private is insistently made public