Feminism and the Honor Plays of Lope de Vega

Chapter Six Mutuality and Submission

Chapter Six Mutuality and Submission Lope's honor plays represent various kinds of male bonding of mutuality and love: through heterosexual circulation, through the exchange of women in marriage, and through transgressive female desire. The dynamics of domination that characterize bonds of rivalry are tempered in those of mutuality in favor of a more horizontal arrangement, though a hierarchical element is rarely completely absent. In numerous plays, groups of men roam the streets looking for women. In contexts of rivalry, fighting over women is a medium for male contact, replete with competitive admiration for each other's manly appearance.1 Men may also form mutual as well as hostile bonds through the heterosexual circulation of women, either procuring them for a social superior or sharing them physically or verbally. In these scenarios ofshopping for "women on the market," heterosexual desire functions as the field for establishing homosocial bonds between two male partn~rs. For Luce Irigaray, the use and traffic in women sUbtend.and uphold the reign of masculine hom(m)o-sexuality [punning with the French hommel, even while they ... defer its real practice. Reigning everywhere, although prohibited in practice, hom(m)osexuality is played out through the bodies ofwomen, matter, or sign, and heterosexuality has been up to now just an alibi for the smooth workings of man's relations with himself, of relations among men. (172) In the opening scene of Venganza, the duke and his servants indulge in some "comparison shopping" before knocking on Cintia's door. They consider the relative merits ofvarious commodities2 and take pleasure in verbally dominating the men who stand in their way. One husband is ridiculed for making a 167 Chapter Six profit by keeping his wife on the market: "Pues si muere su mujer, / Ha de gozar la mitad, / Como bienes gananciales" ("For if his wife dies, he enjoys half [of what other men give her] as community property") (238). Another is dismissed as cuckold or impotent.3 Teodoro and Leonardo in Bella bond through their constant pursuit of anything in skirts: "10 que no quise, no vi; / ... / En mi vida tuve envidia / sino al Turco" ("what I failed to desire, I didn't see.... I've never been jealous of anyone in my life except the Turk") (614). A woman need only be desired by one to be desired by the other (619), and they negotiate exchanges between them: "quizapor no verla allado, / de balde te la dare" ("perhaps to not see' her at my side I will give her to you for nothing") (619); "Truecame aquesta mujer, /pues por ella estas perdido, / por Casandra" ("Trade this woman with me for Casandra, since you have lost your head over her") (621). Their conquests are their "alibi," in Irigarayan terms, for their relationship with each other: Leonardo refers to Teodoro as half of his soul ("media alma" 627) and to them both as forming one soul ("un alma los dos" 613).4 He prefers to follow Teodoro when his friend goes off with Casandra, even though' he has a possible conquest under his nose (617). Just after he decides to give up his mistress and stay at home with his wife, he accompanies Teodoro instead to visit a w~man neither has seen: Leonardo: Voy, Teodoro, ami mujer, que adoro en ver su traslado. Y tU, l,d6nde iras agora? Teodoro : l,Ya no conoces mi tacha? Aver aquella muchacha, que la adoro habra media horae Leonardo: l,Es hermosa? Teodoro: No la he visto; pero pareceme a mf que es bonita. Leonardo : Voy tras tie (636 [75]) In Desposorio, a similar bond exists between the husband and his single friend, who shadows the husband in courting his mistress. As in Bella, the two men are "one soul" who drop everything to see each other: 168 Mutuality and Submission Feliciano: Con gran prisa me avisaron que me llarnabas, Lupercio, y aunque es verdad que me hallaron entre los de mi comercio, todas mis cosas cesaron, que me ha dado el coraz6n que estas con algdn pesar. Lupercio: Cuando dos un alma son, suele esos avisos dar la misma imaginaci6n. (532 [76]) The rival ofFerias initially belongs to a group of young men who bond through the use of woman as circulable commodity. The fairs of the title provide the background for the market in women, since during this time it was customary for men to buy women gifts...