SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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The plots of these three plays move toward “degendering of authority” by including the
possibility that their women may not be controlled but may instead gain control, leading
to chaos.
In Webster’s play, though there is an implication that the Duchess may have
deserved her fate for marrying outside her class and for disobeying male authority (her
brothers) 6 , this reason for Ferdinand’s disapproval is complicated by his
unacknowledged sexual desire for his sister. Presumably, the usual reason for a brother’s
interest in his sister’s choice of husband is control of the widow’s estate. Presciently, her
brother issues an ominous warning:
CARDINAL.
You may flatter yourself,
And take your own choice; privately be married
Under the eaves of night----
FERDINAND. Think 't the best voyage
That e'er you made; like the irregular crab,
Which, though 't goes backward, thinks that it goes right
Because it goes its own way: but observe,
Such weddings may more properly be said
To be executed than celebrated. (I.II)
Accosted by her brothers, who are intent on her remaining unmarried, the Duchess
assures them that she shall never marry. She defies convention, however, by choosing her
own course of action and by her duplicity. Her attitude is in opposition to Panthea’s.
That lady’s sole purpose seems to have been to not only accede to the conventional
societal desire to see women married to suitable men, but also to display happiness and
6 William Painter’s Palace of Pleasure (1567) is known to be Webster’s source for The Duchess of Malfi.