The commodification of women in 'The Shoemaker's Holiday', 'Volpone', 'The Alchemist' and 'The Merchant of Venice' (Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, William Shakespeare)

The Shoemaker's Holiday, Volpone, The Alchemist and The Merchant of Venice are all city comedies that deal with the themes of commerce, trade and the acquisition of wealth. These plays also have in common the treatment of women as property, a concept that was common at the time the plays were written. The treatment of women as commodity reflects the social norms of early modern England, and the situations in these plays represent common, socially accepted commodifications as well as extreme, exaggerated ones, which would likely be considered unacceptable even at the time the plays were written. These depictions of women treated as property or products to be bought, sold and traded serve to criticize an aggressive commercial society as well as to question the social system in which women were treated as commodities.