Theatre reflects its own contextual society, no matter how fantastic or theatrical things can become, themes can always be traced to some sort of relevance in the current times. This is true especially during the Elizabethan periods where about 3 out of 25 Londoners would visit the theatre each week (a single performance at public amphitheaters such as The Globe could attract 3000 spectators out of the 200,000 in London). Though audience numbers eventually dropped during the Jacobean period, numbers were still large enough for authorities to become alarmed at the influence large numbers of citizens are exposed to. Such was the power of a play.
Jacobean drama suffered after the theatrical golden age of Elizabethan theatre. When King James I took over the throne, the theatre lost its reach with the common folk and came to be patronized by the more courtly classes who were known for their lack of discipline and moral value. Naturally, Jacobean theatre became decadent as London’s morbid interest in sexual immorality increased. This era became notorious for its moral laxity. Countless plays were written about immoral love, illicit affairs, even if to condemn it. Prostitutes became the new heroines of the stage, appearing in the popular Dekker and Marston’s plays.
Sexism and misogyny were common in the Jacobean drama. Female characters had almost turned to stock; being categorized especially as either virginal or a whore. They were, more often than not, treated like commodities to please their male counterparts. They were divided up, used as incentives by men and often compared to money and gold.
In Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy, Vindice seeks to avenge the murder of his bride, Gloriana. Forsaking all love and respect he may have had for her, he takes her skull and uses it as an almost necrophiliac prop towards his games of duplicity---a metaphor for using women to serve undignified purposes of men.
Much more is made on the chastity and virtues of the play’s female characters. Vindice’s sister, Castiza, is being persuaded by her mother to receive Lussorioso’s lewd attentions for financial means---Castiza’s chastity in exchange for money.
A Chaste Maid in Cheapside is another work which draws on the comparison between wealth and a woman’s value. Its female characters come from all walks of soceity; including the young and virtuous Moll (plus her gold-digging mother), the sexually ravenous and older Mrs. Allwit and the barren aristocrat, Lady Kix. And with these females come anti-feminist males from different social classes.
Moll’s mother is keen on having her daughter wed Sir Walter Whorehound, a wealthy and immoral man who is just as his surname describes. He only desires wedding Moll because she is a virgin---whilst engaging in other sexual affairs outside their marriage, of course! The hypocrisy around these women are further demonstrated by the fact that Moll's mother would rather have her prostitute herself than remain virtuous and marry the man she really loved. In a society where being chaste was valued, the mother's views on Moll's contradictory situation was common.
Furthermore, male misfortunes in the play are made more important than those of the women.
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