“Bedtrick: sex with a partner who pretends to be someone else.” Introduction, Wendy Doniger, The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade, University of Chicago, 2000.
Two of Shakespeare’s plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure, make use of the plot device called a bedtrick, an ancient motif in stories—and occasionally in life, according to Wendy Doniger’s study, which shares a title with my novel. Like me, Doniger is intrigued by masquerade and pretense in sexual encounters—for her, from a mythic point of view. Thus her definition of the term “bedtrick” is broader than that in Shakespeare’s plays, whereby a man sleeps with the woman he rejected, believing she’s the one he lusts after. The overall definition of a bedtrick is a lie about sex, whatever form that lie takes.
In these two so-called problem comedies of Shakespeare, the man sleeps with a woman who gives him her virginity while he believes she’s someone else, thus consummating her marriage with a reluctant groom. According to Doniger, this sort of bedtrick was legal, and she documents cases to prove it. She adds that in fact, such a deception could be regarded as a valid way to secure a husband. Some men may agree with Stanley Wells’ assertion in Shakespeare, Sex, and Love, that a bedtrick is tantamount to rape: the man does not desire union with this particular woman.
I encountered Doniger’s book after I devised the plot—and title—of this novel, and was relieved that her analysis is inclusive enough that my fictional bedtrick warrants the name. Those perpetrating the bedtrick in my book are fully aware of who slept with whom: the lie is to the world.
The next series of blog posts may relate only tangentially to the theme ‘Sex and Gender in Shakespeare’s England,’ but all connect to Bedtrick one way and another.