Cuckoldry as Performance, 1675-1715

Cuckoldry in eighteenth-century British culture is nearly universally understood to be a situation laden with mockery and scorn. A closer investigation of the sites of performance of cuckoldry in the culture, both in performances upon the stage as well as in "real life," however, suggests that responses to cuckoldry were shifting throughout the century and were far more flexible than most scholars have been willing to acknowledge. A more critical understanding of these attitudes ultimately leads to shifts in our conception of masculine sexuality (and its relationship toward female sexuality and marriage) at the time.