Eternal Bonds, True Contracts: Law and Nature in Shakespeare's Problem Plays

Chapter 2. Things Seen and Unseen: The Contracts in Measure for Measure

C H A P T E R 2 Things Seen and Unseen The Contracts in Measure for Measure Of the four plays I discuss in this book, Measure for Measure is possibly the last to be composed and contains a particularly high concentration of contracts. Flaws in these contracts, involving two pseudomarriages, help complicate the action of the play, and their eventual correction helps resolve it. An analysis of the contracts in Measure for Measure will provide, sometimes by negative example, evidence of what a valid marriage contract means in Shakespeare. It will also provide an overview of the various contractual elements that figure into the other plays. In act 1, scene 2 of Measure for Measure, Claudio enters in chains, having been charged under a seldom-enforced Viennese fornication statute. Lucio begins an exchange: Lucio: Is lechery so looked after? Claudio: Thus stands it with me. Upon a true contract, I got possession of Julietta’s bed. You know the lady; she is fast my wife, Save that we do the denunciation lack Of outward order. This we came not to Only for propagation of a dower Remaining in the coffer of her friends, From whom we thought it meet to hide our love Till time had made them for us. But it chances the stealth of our most mutual entertainment With character too gross is writ on Juliet.
25  Lucio: With child perhaps? Claudio: Unhapp’ly even so. (1.2.133–45; emphasis added)1 Literary and legal scholars alike have differed as to the nature of Claudio’s “true” contract, and a considerable amount of criticism has centered on the question in the past fifty years. Some have considered it a de praesenti contract, some a de futuro, and some have objected to the importance of the question altogether.2 In a wise cautionary remark, Margaret Scott points out that critics should not forget Shakespeare’s law is “story-book law,” kept intentionally vague here in a way that the Sallic law in Henry V is not.3 On the face of things, says Scott, the story-book law in Measure for Measure is Catholic, consistent with its Viennese setting. She argues that the English knew of the difference between their own more lenient view of marriage as opposed to that of the new, Catholic rule, which insisted on public marriages. The English would be more likely to know this one fact than the intricacies of betrothal contracts. Moreover, they would be more likely to question the fairness of a rule that changed the status of a man from irregular husband to arrant fornicator in one pronouncement.4 Scott is correct to say that this is story-book law, and that it is ultimately not about social conflicts arising from different types of spousals. But although the nature of the disputes over the contracts is not the reason for Shakespeare ’s drama, marriage contracts are central to what he is dramatizing. Storybook law in Shakespeare springs from real law, which both he and his audience knew. The differences between the contracts are related to deficiencies in their validity , which relate in turn to features—elaborated upon in chapter 1—that constitute all valid contracts: publicity, value, performance, and contractual tokens. These features are the means by which contracts change relationships, and by which they ensure that things are as they say they are. In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare uses these contractual elements to highlight greater themes, falling under the general headings of “seeming and being” or “falsehood and integrity”—the distinction between the pseudo, as opposed to the fully realized, state. The full realization of the contract also has a dramatic function. By uniting characters who have been separated, the contract helps establish cohesion in a city where separation has been the norm. From this cohesion , the possibility of societal generation follows. An examination of Measure for Measure’s contracts will reveal how Shakespeare uses the elements of publicity, value, performance, and contractual tokens to achieve integrity on personal and societal levels.
26  Eternal Bonds, True Contracts Publicity is the central issue in Claudio’s “true contract.” However Angelo may see the relationship between the two lovers, in Claudio’s view, he and Juliet have been married by way of a clandestine ceremony. In Claudio’s usage, “contract” is more than just a pledge of an intention to marry, it is the marriage itself—the...