Love's Labour's Won Shakespeare originally titled his Shrew play "Love's Labour's Won" in order to distinguish it from the rival play. Yet another possibility is that the name is an alternative title for another Shakespearean comedy not listed by Meres or Hunt. "Much Ado About Nothing", commonly believed to be written around 1598, is often suggested. For example, Henry Woudhuysen's Arden edition (third series) of "Love's Labour's Lost" lists a number of striking similarities between the two plays. "Much Ado about Nothing" is also listed under another alternative title, "Benedick and Beatrice", in several book sellers' catalogues. Leslie Hotson speculated that "Love's Labour's
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