“Truly, an obedient lady”

The fourth act of Othello contains a scene of shocking brutality, in which the enraged hero of the tragedy publicly strikes his young wife in the presence of her kinsman Lodovico and her attendant and confidant Emilia. Trembling, humiliated, the young wife protests with dignity, “I have not deserved this” (4.1.244), ¹ before docilely departing from her infuriated husband, murmuring, “I will not stay to offend you” (4.1.250). Othello's public attack evokes from Lodovico a shocked remonstration, “Truly an obedient lady / I do beseech your lordship, call her back” (4.1.252–53; emphasis added). Othello complies, gloating: Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn. Sire, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep; And she's obedient, as you say, obedient, Very obedient … (4.1.257–61; emphasis added) Othello's cruelty, Desdemona's defenselessness, and the quadruple repetition of the word obedient graphically accentuate the abuse of power inherent in the dominant matrimonial ideology of the period, the precept of patriarchal supremacy and wifely subservience, a precept vitiating even the mutuality of the consensual, companionate marriage. However, contrary discourses circulating at this period, particularly the doctrine of conscience, challenged the ideology of unconditional patriarchal authority. Positioning itself within the contemporaneous debates on female agency, wifely subjection, and spousal abuse, this essay relates Othello to the conflict within early modern marriage between the doctrine of obedience and the doctrine of conscience, reading the play as a critique of uxorial violence and a trenchant interrogation of the venerated ideal of unconditional wifely obedience.