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V. Conclusion

The Two Noble Kinsmen 's Emilia, then, offers a rebuttal to Renaissance commonplaces about female friendship's impossibility. She appears on stage with a marked preference for her own sex, a preference that places homoerotics squarely within the scope of female friendship. The status of "Emilia's choice" with respect to her impending forced marriage is unknowable, but its location in a proprietary female space suggests that it is likely to be unaffected.⁶⁶ While Emilia's probable sexual transaction with her Woman diverges from Montaigne's model—in admitting sexuality, in traversing class lines, and in the element of "bargaining" it contains—it nevertheless suggests a form of female association that fits smoothly with conventional Renaissance patterns of female household seclusion or governance. Although domestic and interior spaces are widely associated with women, they are never investigated as the plural, female community which,...

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1. Introduction
2. I. Chastity and the Space Of Female Friendship
3. II. Improvisations On the Friendship Form
4. III. Theseus's Power
5. IV. Emilia's Choice
6. V. Conclusion
7. Copyright