Shakespeare comedies end with everyone easily pairing off, each partner staring in adoration upon their mate. Long ago, I attended a showing of “Dog in the Manger,” a play by Lope de Vega, a contemporary to the Elizabethan bard. In his comedy, the couples paired off as well, the lead protagonist won the woman he desired. And yet there was a sense of unease, as if he was wondering whether he had made the right decision. It could have been the director’s note. But I also wondered about the role of relationships, love, and marriage in the Spanish Golden Age.
The general custom in the patrician class was for the parents to negotiate with another family and arrange the marriage. It was a long process, which frequently involved making inquiries about the background of the family. Parents of the bride gave a dowry to the groom, which is meant to help him embark on his life creating the next aristocratic generation. In the lower classes, arrangements didn’t happen as much and marriage was more of an option than a definite path. Strange to say that the lower classes had more freedom when it came to choosing their partner, but finances did become involved as well. The city government of Seville offered a small amount of funds for those lower-classed individuals who wanted to marry, thus providing them a meagre dowry.
This wasn’t to say that love was not involved. Love complicated this system. When a daughter becomes of marrying age, the parents take on the responsibility to start finding a husband for her. If that daughter is already in love with a man, and that man is not someone the parents want, they may intervene by sending her to a convent for a period of time. The general rule was if after that extended time apart, she still wishes to marry him, then she is allowed. On one hand, this sounds like love championing all. On the other hand, it sounds like the parents are challenged to ensure that the husband for their daughter is of their choosing and not her own.
These risks, along with the ongoing need for unmarried men and women to be kept apart meant that the sexes rarely interacted with one another. During performances at the corral (the round theatre) the unmarried women would be confined to a separate balcony only they could access through a secret passage (with guards). Before the play and during intermission, men from below would throw sweets to them. At the end of mass, women would pass through the narthex to bless themselves with holy water before leaving the church. Young men would scurry and jostle to get to the narthex first and sprinkle the water. Courtship consisted more of “throwing at” than “talking to.”
Then there are motes. Since unmarried men and women were rarely around one another, in their separate spaces they would send small poems with an amorous bent towards one another. This would usually happen in palaces or large estates. Known as motes, they were usually couplet lines written on one piece of paper and then passed back and forth. They had an intermediary sending this paper between the two.
This man is writing how he swoons upon seeing his lover and you can’t even get a text back confirming your date?
The Spanish Golden Age was a period where marriage (at least for the higher classes) was closely observed and heavily guarded. Courtly love goes back to the medieval period, thus it exists in the 1600s, drives the art of the period. And yet, it was something that couples hoped to have, but it wasn’t guaranteed.
Then again, what was love in that period? From our contemporary lens, it feels like their idea of love was a form of attachment, more about themselves than actually knowing the person they wished to be with. In so many of the actions by men, they placed the woman on a pedestal. And that rarely ends well. In my research, I came across several instances of a man wooing a woman and later abandoning her.
So perhaps there was an intention in de Vega’s plays for a happy ending that seems questionable, because what happens in the after?
This has inspired me to do another post on all of the methods of deception in the Spanish Golden Age, specifically ones around relationships, but for now, let’s focus on love.
I hope you get some lovely motes this season. Or at least one sugared pear pelted at you.