Week 10: an essay

Chastity the Whore: an Exploration of Femininity in Any Thing for a Quiet Life

Thomas Middleton, an Early Modern playwright, blurs the binaries that society construct around femininity in his play Any Thing for a Quiet Life as he embraces and pushes back on the definitions of whoredom and chastity. Female sexuality in Early Modern England was regulated and maintained by the term “whore”. Chasity, silence, and obedience are the principle qualities of ideal femininity, and female assertions are associated with whoreishness, witchcraft, and sin. Thomas Middleton creates holes in the construction of femininity by blurring the moiety that femininity is umbrella-ed.  The female characters in Any Thing for a Quiet Life, do anything for a quiet life—they make any concession to maintain their economical or personal happiness, but the way that femininity is portrayed in this play embraces certain characteristics of femininity and contradicts certain depictions of femininity. Women are characterized under two dichotomies in Middleton’s plays: chaste women affirming their chastity and fidelity through whoredom, or sexually active, economically, or politically active women (accused of being whores for their break in gender norms), justify themselves by emphasizing their chastity. The inconsistencies in Sib Knavesbe in Any Thing for a Quiet Life illustrates the fallacies in defining women by their sexuality in the Early Modern period. Sib Knavesbe, the wife of Knavesbe, has more agency, control, awareness of her situation than the typical Middleton female character. Her wit throughout the play allows her to interrogate the construction of femininity in Early Modern England.

The first time that Sib Knavesbe displays her awareness and control of a situation is when she is being berated by her husband to tell him about her past conquests. She asks, “What tricks, what crochets are these? Have you placed anybody behind the arras to hear my confession? I heard one in England got a divorce from his wife by such a trick. Were I disposed now I would make you as mad. You shall see me play the changeling” (2.1.67). Middleton builds this character to push back on the dichotomy of femininity through her awareness of how delicate her reputation is as a woman. Sib Knavesbe is fully aware that if her husband is attempting to trick her, and that by admitting any whoreishness, she can be dismissed. Her female reputation hangs in the balance with her husband’s view of her sexuality. Sib vocally protest against her husband’s questions breaking the feminine ideal of silence and obedience, but maintaining her female reputation.

The next time that Sib’s awareness of her female reputation is depicted is when Knavesbe attempts to give Sib to Beafort to increase his preferment. The way that Sib discusses the situation in a short monologue illustrates her knowledge that her body is being traded like a good. After Sib Knavesbe speaks with Beafort and Knavesbe she says to herself: “did I not know my husband of so base, conceptual nature I should think ‘Twere a trick to try me…I’ll go to [Beaufort]…and what I’ll do there, o’ my troth, I know not. Women though puzzled with these subtle deeds, May, as i’th’ spring, pick physic out of the weeds” (2.2.179-193). Sib breaks the traditional role of women through her awareness that her faithfulness is being test or that she is cuckolding Knavesbe for his own gain. Middleton allows this character to discuss the multiple ways that she lacks power, by giving her power on stage. While Sib Knavesbe understands the two situations she could be in, by discussing them in a monologue, alone on stage—Middleton is giving Sib Knavesbe the agency typically reserved for male characters to discuss the way her femininity is being tested or sold. By playing with these two elements Sib Knavesbe interrogates the constructions of femininity of Early Modern England by embracing a male role.

The following instance that Sib uses her wit to push back on the feminine ideal is when she attempts to make a bargain with Lord Beaufort. When Sib arrives at Beauforts estates, she flirts with the page at the entrance. Having supposedly fallen for the page, Sib Knavesbe attempts to make a deal with Beaufort concerning her own reputation and the page’s body. She says “you may command him sir—if not affection, yet his body—and I desire but that. Do’t and I’ll command myself your prostitute” (3.1.143-145). The first thing to note is that Sib is painfully aware that her body is a tradable good, and attempts to bargain her own body with for the page’s body. By entering the economic world, Sib enters the realm of the “whore”, and by commanding her own body she has the same agency that a whore would in Early Modern England, but she doesn’t attempt to disguises the bartering of her reputation through feigned chastity like other Middleton characters. Beaufort is revolted at the idea of procuring the page for Sib Knavesbe, and says that her husband will pay for the insult to him. The importance of this scene is followed when Sib Knavesbe is alone on stage again, she says: “This trick has made mine honesty secure” (3.1.168). Sib Knavesbe embodies the whoreishness behavior of the Early Modern paradigm to maintain her female reputation.

            Middleton builds Sib Knavesbe’s character to interrogate the uses of chastity and whoreisheness to her own advantage throughout the play. Her wit and awareness of her female reputation blurs the binaries that society construct around femininity and pushes back on the definitions of whoredom and chastity. By vocally questioning her husband on stage, Sib Knavesbe pushes back on the first two ideals of an Early Modern woman—silence and obedience. Middleton allows Sib to further question the dichotomy of female chastity when she has a monologue discussing the two possible situations she could be in. By giving her the monologue, Middleton allows Sib to embrace the agency given to male roles on stage while ironically discussing her how her femininity is being tested or sold. The agency that she displays bartering the page’s and her body with Lord Beaufort questions the societal construction of chastity, silence, and obedience because she enters a whoreish sphere to keep her female reputation chaste. Thomas Middleton creates holes in the construction of femininity by blurring Sib’s role as a woman at each point in the play. Sib’s agency, control, awareness in Any Thing for a Quiet Life seems to be a deliberate attempt to poke at the fallacies in the construction of women in the society of Middleton’s Audience.