A main theme in early modern domestic tragedy was not marital discordas such but violent - usually unreasonably violent - behaviour on thehusband's part. At a time when husbands were not only allowed butobliged to rule their families, including their wives, the definitionof 'lawful and reasonable' measures of punishment were opened todebate. The marriage of John Frankford, a middling country gentleman, and his wife Anne is comfortable if uneventful, until Wendoll, anacquaintance of her husband's, confesses his passionate love to her.Anne yields to him; they are discovered. Instead of...

Thomas Heywood's masterpiece, A Woman Killed With Kindness, is a domestic tragedy, which combines two plots and has two women at its centre. One woman is almost prostituted by her brother in order to pay off his creditor. The other woman begins an affair with her husband's friend and house-guest, only to be discovered by her husband and sent away from their home. This supposed act of 'kindness' by her husband, who spares his wife the fate of being killed outright, ends in disaster, and this is a morality tale that Heywood wanted his audience to learn from.

In this edition...