Shakespeare's Wife

In her biography, Shakespeare's Wife (2007), Australian author and feminist intellectual Germaine Greer seeks to rehabilitate the image of Ann Hathaway, William Shakespeare's wife, whom scholars have viewed with disdain for centuries. According to the Guardian, "At its best this is a spirited, voluble, scholarly book which gives some depth and some dignity to the marginalized Mrs. Shakespeare."

Greer admits that relatively little is known about Ann Hathaway. Even her first name is up for debate, as her father's will lists it as "Agnes." Born in 1556, Ann grew up in Shottery, England, a small village just a mile west of Stratford-upon-Avon, where William Shakespeare would be born eight years later. Ann's father, Richard, was a free yeoman farmer, meaning that he was neither a member of nobility nor a serf beholden to the gentry. When Ann was fourteen or fifteen, Richard died, leaving to her in his will the sum of six pounds to be paid on her wedding day.

Because so much of what is known about Ann comes from church registers, her life between the death of Richard and her marriage to William is largely a mystery. What is certain is that in November of 1582, Ann and William married. Ann was twenty-six and William eighteen. The wedding may have been somewhat rushed, since the Worchester chancellor allowed the nuptials to take place after just one announcement of the marriage banns, as opposed to the traditional three. Just six months after their nuptials, Ann gave birth to her first daughter, Susanna. The age difference, and the fact that Ann was already pregnant with William's child, has led many scholars to characterize the pair's nuptials as a so-called "shotgun wedding," in which the groom is strongly urged by the bride and her family to enter into marriage against his wishes. Scholars persisted in this view after documents emerged showing an earlier marriage application for an Ann Whateley, followed by the issuance of a forty-pound guarantee should William marry Hathaway. Greer, however, cites more recent scholarship strongly suggesting that Ann Whateley never existed, and the incorrect surname was merely the consequence of a clerical error.



Greer further contends that neither the age difference nor the antenuptial pregnancy would have been unusual occurrences in the Elizabethan English countryside. She bases this contention on her research of lives that ran parallel to the Shakespeares' during the same timeframe. Ann's comparatively advanced age at the time of her marriage was likely a natural consequence of having been the eldest child of an orphaned family, forced to take care of younger siblings until they came of age. The author also finds in the historical record a fairly large number of women who were already pregnant at the time of their wedding. Finally, the fact that the wedding took place in the chilly month of November was not as unusual as one might think. In fact, she finds that more weddings in Warwickshire took place that year in the autumn than any other season.

The author also counters the argument that the Hathaways' social standing was significantly lower than that of Shakespeare's standing in Warwickshire county. While Shakespeare's father had been a successful glover and an appointed alderman, his family had fallen into financial ruin by the time of his marriage to Ann. Meanwhile, Hathaway's family was still in a relatively strong social and financial position, leading Greer to conclude that Ann was a better catch for William than the other way around.

Roughly six months after the wedding, Ann and William baptized their first daughter, Susanna. The next historical record relating to the couple came two years later in 1585 when Ann gave birth to fraternal twins Hamnet and Judith. In 1596, tragedy struck when Hamnet died at the age of eleven. Although the cause of death is unknown, the author and other scholars believe he may have fallen victim to one of the many outbreaks of the bubonic plague that scarred the English countryside in the late 16th century.



At least by 1592, Shakespeare had become a fixture in the London theater scene. Much has been made about the fact that Shakespeare did not bring Ann with him to London, where he stayed for months at a time while his plays were performed in the theaters there. But this too is not unusual to Greer, who concludes that this arrangement was not uncommon.

The final piece of evidence scholars cite in characterizing Shakespeare's marriage as one of "evil auspices" is William's will. In it, he bequeaths everything to his daughter, Susanna aside from his "second-best bed." While many historians view this as a final cruel jab at his wife, Greer views it as evidence that Ann was financially stable on her own. She further finds evidence that Ann operated a successful malt business in Stratford-upon-Avon, existing as a predominantly independent woman during Shakespeare's long absences.

In summation, Greer perceives a misogynistic bent in scholars' prevailing tendency to view Ann in such an unflattering light: "The Shakespeare wallahs have succeeded in creating a Bard in their own likeness, that is to say, incapable of relating to women."



Shakespeare's Wife is a fascinating piece of historical scholarship that questions prevailing views about Ann Hathaway.