Love's Labour's Consequences: The Detriment of Romance in Ma

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             The intellectual dominance of the male scholars is apparent and illustrated in Act 5, Scene 2, when Jacquenetta approaches Holofernes and Nathaniel and requests them to "be so good as read me this letter" (line 83), acknowledging her own illiteracy and sub ordinance to the learned men. Although these men are not of royal or noble lineage, they take their privileged education as superiority over the woman. Jacquenetta is told to .
             "[s] tay not thy compliment, I forgive thy duty" (130-131), as though she needs to be pardoned or given permission to leave the premises. It is quite doubtful that if it were a man leaving in a hurry that he would be dismissed in the same manner as the wench. .
             The King of Navarre, Biron, Longueville, and Dumaine can all be seen as holding control over the women of Love's Labour's as they are the ones to call the shots on almost all aspects of their interactions. It is they who decide to forgo all relations with the opposite sex during their term of scholarship, and then it is the King who decrees the law "that no woman shall come within a mile of my court" (Act 1, Scene 1, 119-120), issuing a penalty of having their tongue cut out for any woman who disobeys the order. This displays an unrivalled amount of control not only over the free actions of women but in the arena of law where impractical rules concerning female subjects are indisputable and can be drawn up on a whim.
             This sense of male supremacy in Love's Labour's can also be seen in the more immediate context of the romances occurring between the male protagonists and the objects of their affection. In the courting process of the Princess, Katherine, Maria, Rosaline, and Jacquenetta, the male suitors are acting as active pursuers, able to choose who it is that they want to woo, with subjects of pursuit who are unlikely to refuse the hand of a noble gentleman. In addition, the men in the play have the option of courting a woman of lower social stature, as Don Armado does with Jacqenetta, who he recognizes as a country girl, yet undeterminably declares that he is "in love with a base wench" (Act 1, Scene 2, 54).