ABSTRACT
The first chapter is concerned with the first known domestic tragedy, Arden of Faversham. It foregrounds questions of mastery and obedience, the limits of a master’s authority and of a servant’s duty to obey. It argues that Arden of Faversham not only depicts a household whose master fails in his duty to govern his wife and, specifically, control her sexuality, as has already been suggested in the scholarly literature. The play, more importantly, is centrally concerned with the failure of the Ardens to be a responsible master and mistress to their domestic servants and with the consequences of this failure for the master-servant relationship, for the meanings of service, and for the servants, Susan and Michael, themselves in their courtship and personal lives. Central to the argument of this chapter is that Arden depicts poor household government as undermining the very purposes of the institution of service and perverting its most fundamental tenets as repeatedly voiced in the conduct literature and as glimpsed in surviving court cases. Failing in her duty to be a spiritual guide and to model subjection for her servants, Mistress Arden, this chapter demonstrates, perverts all that an early modern mistress was entrusted to do. The result is no less dangerous than household service being turned on its head.
