The Law Against Lovers The Law Against Lovers The Law Against Lovers was a dramatic adaptation of Shakespeare, arranged by Sir William Davenant and staged by the Duke's Company in 1662. It was the first of the many Shakespearean adaptations staged during the Restoration era. Davenant was not shy about changing the Bard's work; he based his text on "Measure for Measure", but also added Beatrice and Benedick from "Much Ado About Nothing" — "resulting in a bizarre and fascinating combination." He made Angelo from the former play, and Benedick from the latter, into brothers. The comedy of Pompey the clown and Elbow the
Much Ado About Nothing and proneness to sexual lightness". In the patriarchal society of the play, the men's loyalties were governed by conventional codes of honour and camaraderie and a sense of superiority to women. Assumptions that women are by nature prone to inconstancy are shown in the repeated jokes on cuckoldry and partly explain Claudio's readiness to believe the slur against Hero. This stereotype is turned on its head in Balthazar's song "Sigh No More," which presents men as the deceitful and inconstant sex that women must suffer. A theme in Shakespeare is cuckoldry or the infidelity of a wife. Several of the