SOURCE: " 'Lawful Deed': Consummation, Custom, and Law in All's Well That Ends Well," in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, Vol. 49, 1996, pp. 181-200.

In the following essay, Mukherji studies the legal and contractual obligations of Renaissance marriage dramatized in Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well.

Having wed Helena at the king of Rossillion's behest, Bertram, the king's ward, refuses to bed her and flies to Italy with her dower, leaving a conditional letter for her: 'When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband; but in such a "then" I write a "never" '(All's Well That Ends Well 3.2.57-60).¹

Bertram's marriage, overseen by king and priest, counts as a solemnized de praesenti union for all practical purposes. And as Henry...