Quick background note: when the Duchess insists to Ferdinand that she's not reinventing the wheel by remarrying ("I have not gone about in this to create / Any new world or custom" (3.2.110-11)), she's not messing with him: between 1600 and 1659 over half of widows in their 20's and 30's remarried (Oakes, 53). The Duchess isn't just any woman, though; she's a ruler, and as such her decision to remarry is a lot more loaded than it might otherwise be.
As a ruler, the Duchess has two bodies: the body natural (her actual, physical body) and the body politic (her identity as sovereign). While we talk about the Duchess's body a fair bit in her "Character Analysis," it's good to note here that, by marrying Antonio (and, especially, doing so in secret), the Duchess is essentially putting her private life—her body natural—above her political life—her body politic. This means that, while the Duchess is totally within her rights to remarry, the particular way in which she goes about it in The Duchesss of Malfi is, arguably, pretty irresponsible.
Questions About Marriage
- Why are the Duchess's brothers so hell-bent against her choosing a husband?
- Do you think that, if Duchess hadn't married Antonio, her brothers would have eventually selected a suitable, aristocratic man for her to remarry, or would they have insisted on her staying single for the rest of her life?
- Which condemns the Duchess's marriage more: social custom or her brothers?
- Do you think that the Duchess's marriage is better characterized as her "going [out] into a wilderness" (1.1.351) or as her retreating inside of her secret, closely guarded marriage? Is she expanding, or contracting?
Chew on This
Several times, the Duchess calls upon the authority she gained by being the widow of the late Duke of Malfi—"I am Duchess of Malfi still." Her choice to identify herself through her status as the widow of the Duke—the identity her brothers wish her to retain—negates her decision to marry Antonio and be a living, socially inferior man's wife.
If the Duchess hadn't married Antonio, eventually her brothers would have selected some suitably aristocratic guy for her and none of this hot mess would have ever happened.