SOURCE: "Parent and Child: The Pattern of Love in Women Beware Women," in "Accompaninge the players": Essays Celebrating Thomas Middleton, 1580-1980, edited by Kenneth Friedenreich, AMS Press, 1983, pp. 183-201.

Wigler investigates the three love affairs in Women Be-ware Women—between Bianca and the Duke, Isabella and Hippolito, and Leantio and Livia—in support of his contention that "the pattern of love" in the play "is ultimately something very close to incest. "

Three romantic intrigues form the subject matter of Middleton's Women Beware Women. The first of these is the story of Bianca's love affair with the Duke, their murder of her husband Leantio, and the end of their subsequent marriage in Bianca's mistaken murder of the Duke and her suicide. The second intrigue relates the history of Hippolito's incestuous passion for his niece Isabella, and of the latter's betrayal to Hippolito by Livia, who is Isabella's aunt as...