Book Review: A Chaste Maid in Cheapside

Firstly, a shout out to Nick Hern Books for replacing my initial copy, as all the pages had started falling out. But aside from the minor detail of my play falling to pieces, I myself was falling to pieces… laughing because I’ve never read a play with so made innuendoes for a penis and the vagina. So. Damn. Many. It was laughable. Thank god it's a comedy, be awkward if this were a tragedy. In my defence, this was a surprise. I opened this play by Thomas Middleton, expecting a tragedy, having previously read ‘Women Beware Women’ and ‘The Changeling’. Long story short, everyone dies. But this play ends with a wedding - Huzzah! A nice change, to be honest.

So let’s talk about all the innuendoes; my Mr. Thomas Middleton, we do have an active imagination, or was it just a sign of the times? Was the Jacobean society just inundated with fabulous slang language for people's private parts? And we haven't even spoken about the plot yet. Lordy. It was somewhat refreshing, seeing as most of Middleton’s plays all end in pretty much everyone dying. But onto the plot…

Everyone in Jacobean London wants to marry, but only for money. They want to marry for the large dowry or marry into money. Marriage is a business. Love? What about it! Love doesn't matter when there is money to be made, connections to the higher-ups in society just within touching distance. And that is the main theme of our play: Money. The young lady Mol is to be married; she is prized by her father and loathed by her mother, who will be glad to be rid of her soon to the supposedly wealthy Sir Walter, who is a philandering misogynist whose future relies on inheriting his fortune from the childless Master and Mistress Kix. Moll is in love with Touchwood Junior and is willing to risk hell, fire and fury for their love despite their attempts going wrong several times. The Allwits are a married couple, but the wife is having an affair with Sir Walter, much to the delight of her husband, who happily loves the spoils of the affair. Luckily, after a couple of faked deaths and Mistress Kix becoming pregnant, we have a happy ending and ruin beacons for all the misogynists in this play! Huzzah!

The reality of marrying for money and power was all the rage in Jacobean society, and this play does a stellar job of highlighting its pitfalls. For example, is it completely okay to be pimping your wife out for money? And is it okay to be selling your daughter off to a horrible man with a seemingly never-ending list of sexual depravities? Oh, and by the way - he is the one demanding a “pure and virtuous woman”. Thank god we live in slightly more enlightened times - sure, you get people who are borderline backwards in their view on the societal standing of women, and true, there are cults out there that are essentially living to the standards of Middleton’s time. And yes, there are people like a certain first lady and a billionaire's wife who are basically gold diggers. But I think they will always exist, and hey, each to their own. But I'd much rather be a woman now than back in Middleton's day.