SOURCE: "Whores and Wives in Jacobean Drama," in In Another Country: Feminist Perspectives on Renaissance Drama, edited by Dorothea Kehler and Susan Baker, The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1991, pp. 246-60.

In the following excerpt, Kahn examines The Dutch Courtesan in the context of the evolving depiction of women's sexuality in Jacobean drama.

Women as represented in Jacobean drama are queens, thieves, nuns, viragos, mothers, prostitutes, prophets, witches, widows, shopkeepers, servants. Whatever their vocation, social role, or temperament, they are conceived within the framework of one social institution: marriage. The few single independent women without male guardians—Cleopatra, Ursula the pig woman, Moll Cutpurse, for example—are represented as anomalies, freaks, or deviants. Female characters, with few exceptions, are either on their way to the altar or firmly attached to a household provided for and ruled over by their husbands, fathers, or brothers. Woman, generically speaking, is either maid, wife...