Female Relationships

The author of these plays portrays a number of intimate woman-to-woman relationships. These relationships were not included in the source materials from which the playwright borrowed the plot; many of the women were added to the original stories so there could be a relationship. The bonds between these women are strong and supportive (well, Helena and Hermia have some issues for a bit), as opposed to the male relationships which often tend to be destructive.

Paulina and Hermione in The Winter’s Tale.
Hermia and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Rosalind and Celia in As You Like It.
Desdemona and Emilia in Othello.
Beatrice and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing.
Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Ann, and the Duchess of York in Richard III.
Maria and Olivia in Twelfth Night.
Adriana and Luciana (sisters) in The Comedy of Errors.
Julia and Silvia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
The Princess of France, Rosaline, Maria, and Katherine in Love’s Labor’s Lost.
Portia and Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice.
Mistress Ford and Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Juliet and her Nurse in Romeo and Juliet.
Cleopatra with Charmian and Iras in Antony and Cleopatra.
Volumnia, Virgilia, and Valeria in Coriolanus.

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, have with our needles created both one flower, both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion, both warbling of one song, both in one key, as if our hands, our sides, voices and minds, had been incorporate. So we grow together, like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition; two lovely berries moulded on one stem; so, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.: Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream