SOURCE: “Marriage and Mutuality in Othello,” in Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare, University of North Carolina Press, 1984, pp. 125-49.

In the essay below, Novy considers patriarchy in the marriage of Othello and Desdemona.

In an article entitled “Marriage and the Construction of Reality,” the sociologists Peter Berger and Hansfried Kellner say, “Unlike an earlier situation in which the establishment of the new marriage simply added to the differentiation and complexity of an already existing social world, the marriage partners are now embarked on the often difficult task of constructing for themselves the little world in which they will live.”¹ By this definition, Othello and Desdemona seem to begin their marriage in a situation more modern than traditional. Othello is cut off from his ancestry; Desdemona is disowned by her father. They spend most of the play in Cyprus, a setting native to neither of them. Thus they...