The Bard for the Dance Between the Sexes 

The state of marriage and family formation in our young people is disheartening. To peer in a little, one problem in the matrix, reported by the Institute for Family Studies, seems to be a lack of know-how in the dance between the sexes: that is, young people are nervous about even approaching and talking to each other to start dating, let alone discerning the long-term commitment of marriage.  

It’s worth examining the bleak landscape of dating and courtship these days if there is any hope of reviving it, and we can find inspiration in the Bard, William Shakespeare. April 23 is observed as both Shakespeare’s birthday (an educated guess based on his baptism date) and the day of his death. On this day, perhaps we can find in his work some illumination for the dance between the sexes.  

The rise of classical schools across the country, one dearly hopes, will result in young people who have savored Shakespeare. Certainly Shakespeare’s work is worthy to be studied and enjoyed for its own sake. But if one side effect of contemplating Shakespeare is some young people of marriageable age being more adept at this dance than the current state of such dancing suggests, it would be most felicitous.  

Yet it’s also true that the majority of young people do not attend classical schools, and Shakespeare has been exiled, nay, killed off, from curricula. So if there are any young friends who have not encountered such sublimity that is Shakespeare, perhaps it behooves us to take Shakespeare and place him firmly in their hands, to be treasured day after day. Friends don’t let friends not read Shakespeare.  

“If music be the food of love, play on,” the Duke says in Twelfth Night. In the spirit of cheering young people for the arduous and utterly delightful quest of marriage formation, here are three cheers from the mighty pen of the Bard—his masterly music for a sumptuous banquet. 

In Much Ado About Nothing, friends of Benedick and Beatrice, who have each proudly sworn off each other and marriage altogether (yes, there is a backstory there—the whole play is gorgeous, well worth the read), come up with a grand plan of staging a conversation within earshot of Benedick and later, Beatrice, to have each think that he (and later, she) are overhearing the friends talk of how the other is madly in love with none other than the person for whose ear the conversation is staged. Upon “overhearing” his friends speak of Beatrice’s love for him, Benedick steps out into this grand soliloquy: 

This can be no trick. The conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Hero; they seem to pity the lady. It seems her affections have their full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured. They say I will bear myself proudly if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair— ‘tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous—‘tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me—by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. [Enter Beatrice] By this day, she’s a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.  

To begin with, blessed are young people with friends like these. But here Benedick himself is utterly endearing, funny, touching. (See Kenneth Branagh’s fine performance of it here.) Prominently, we see a change of heart from swearing off women and marriage to an openness of heart to Beatrice and marriage. What’s more, he is even excited. This requires a number of things, not the least of which is humility. “I hear how I am censured,” he says, and “I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending.” For too many chronically online young men who have sworn off marriage and family life entirely with the peddling of some manosphere figures, perhaps Benedick’s story might hold a certain resonance, a certain pattern worth contemplating.  

Beatrice, for her part, following her turn of “overhearing” her friends speak of Benedick’s love for her, rises to match the stature of Benedick’s courage and wideness of heart.  

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? 

  Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? 

Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! 

  No glory lives behind the back of such. 

And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, 

  Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand. 

If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee 

  To bind our loves up in a holy band, 

For others say thou dost deserve, and I 

Believe it better than reportingly. 

Beatrice, too, is not too proud to have a change of heart and direction. “Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu!” she exclaims. (See Emma Thompson’s fine work in that soliloquy here.) But she doesn’t stop there. Happily for her and Benedick and all of us readers in posterity, she keeps going to say, “And Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,/ Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.” C. S. Lewis has observed that Jane Austen’s heroines are capable of precisely this: a change of heart—and that such a thing is laden with religious significance. 

More than one generation of women now have been raised in a culture that prioritizes career over marriage and family formation, rewarding them to seek to be girlbosses more than to be wives and mothers, if nothing else in the crucial twenties and thirties—precisely in the fertility window. It would be a good reorientation for women to have a “marriage mindset,” as the sociologist Brad Wilcox calls it, not unlike the change that comes over Beatrice, toward that “holy band.”

Beatrice’s change of heart and direction is made all the more interesting and poignant, precisely because she is no shrinking violet. One of Shakespeare’s best heroines, Beatrice is witty, strong-willed, funny, and feisty. (Benedick says of her and of himself, “Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.”) Contra a girlboss narrative that would consign marriage to settlers and losers, Beatrice’s disposition and character let us see the vista of the good life in marriage chosen by someone this courageous, this spunky, this cool, with spiritedness to boot. 

Shakespeare’s audience would not have needed persuading that marriage was a good thing, worthy of pursuing. They understood it implicitly. It is tragic that we don’t; not anymore. It is meet and right that we make the case, articulate what is true, that marriage is a great good, a great blessing, worthy of pursuit and cultivation. Neither would Shakespeare’s audience have thought it a non sequitur that Benedick exclaims in the same breath as marriage, “The world must be peopled.” Marriage and children should go together: Rightly conceived, marriage always ought to be open to life.  

This pursuit is not unlike a dance. In dancing, much as it is in courtship, the man leads, and the woman responds. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo makes the first move in approaching Juliet, saying to her: 

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
  This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
  To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss. 

Juliet responds, and the pair’s dialogue proceeds as follows: 

Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
  Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
  And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss

ROMEO: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too

JULIET: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer

ROMEO: O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do!
  They pray: grant thou, lest faith turn to despair

JULIET : Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO: Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purged. 

The bold and flattering hello, the playful beckoning, the rich metaphors, the witty repartee, the back and forth, you step here and I go there—Shakespeare embodies in the scene the enthralling dance between the sexes that is courtship and romance.  

It takes courage for a man to approach a woman. Granted, this would have been easier when there were more institutionalized social settings to do that, like a ball. But to the extent that embodied interactions still exist, however desolate the landscape of embodiment may be, if Romeo be any inspiration, young men should take the risk. Yes, an AI girlfriend carries zero risk of rejection, but it—emphatically not a she—is utterly inhuman and dehumanizing. Further, it makes a difference to a woman that the man chooses her, out of all others, that he approaches her and asks her out—unassisted and unmediated by apps and algorithms. It’s not, oh, well, the system spat us both as a match to get matcha together. The man’s agency matters, and flatteringly so.  

It is beyond the scope of this essay to explore the kind of romance, for good and ill, that Romeo and Juliet pursue. The point here is more modest: merely to encourage going up there. To be sure, none of us mere mortals could speak as captivatingly as Shakespeare’s lines for Romeo and Juliet. But men shouldn’t underestimate the potential of a thoughtful and charming pick-up line, first impressions, and the art of being a good conversationalist. Now, J. R. R. Tolkien did think that we ought to be studying and trying our hand at writing poetry. But if we at first (or ever) don’t write good poetry, let us use and quote Shakespeare, who lends his music and magic liberally and without reproach. 

This is all quite a steep mountain to climb for men, even steeper because the practice of face-to-face interactions has been made sparse and the norm weaker. It would be good for all of society to do this, but in this conversation, it would be good for women to make it more plausible for the men to start a conversation. As an example, perhaps we might even consider not having earbuds in at all times and places? Both men and women need to learn how to delight, and to delight in each other. If the man takes risks in approaching the woman and she is interested, not unlike Juliet, she should reciprocate and signal with class and charm that she is pleased with his effort and that she is encouraging him. 

Yet another duke, this time in As You Like It, looking at four weddings at the end of the play, says, “Proceed, proceed. We’ll begin these rites,/ As we do trust they’ll end, in true delights.” Marriage and family are among the basic goods of the good life, of flourishing, of delights. Shakespeare is cheering us on. May we take heart and enter the dance. 

Image licensed via Adobe Stock.