Love and marriage

How Shakespeare explores love, courtship and marriage: the caskets, the rings and the three couples across the text, and why it matters to the text's meaning.
Where it appears, the key quotations that show it, and different ways it can be interpreted.
Evidence from the beginning, middle and end of the text.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father's will', 'Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath', 'Beshrew me but I love her heartily', 'Promise me life, and I'll confess the truth', 'This house, these servants and this same myself / Are yours, my lord', 'I give them with this ring; / Which when you part from, lose, or give away, / Let it presage the ruin of your love', 'You loved, I loved; for intermission', 'I will ne'er come in your bed / Until I see the ring', 'My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord / Will never more break faith advisedly'.
Context: fathers' authority over daughters' marriages and a wife's duty to her husband, and how far Portia and Jessica accept or bend them.
The three couples compared, and the rings as a test of whether love or friendship comes first.

What you need to know