What is the Duke's view on women's role in society in "My Last Duchess"?

The Duke’s view of women’s role in society cannot altogether be extrapolated from his ideas about the particular duties and obligations of his wife. His monologue makes it clear that he expects an almost superhuman degree of decorum and reserve from the duchess. She should maintain an icy demeanor with everyone except her husband to show that she values him and his “gift of a nine-hundred-years old name” vastly more than anyone or anything else.

The Duke repeatedly says that he could not make the Duchess understand quite what he expected of her; he also seems to have difficulty in expressing precisely what in her behavior upset him. He seems, therefore, to have expected from her something approaching clairvoyance, a supernatural ability to determine just what he wants from her without being told.

While the Duke expects great things from his Duchess (a chilling reflection for the daughter of the Count, with whom a marriage is being arranged), one can assume that his ideas about women in general are broadly in line with what he expects from her. They should subordinate themselves entirely to their husbands, not even smiling at anyone else. They should make it the study of their lives to discover and fulfill their husbands’ wishes. They should have no recourse against a husband who is entitled to punish, even to kill, on a whim. They should be as beautiful and as silent as a painting.

What is the Duke's view on women's role in society in "My Last Duchess"?

The duke primarily views women as beautiful objects to be possessed by their husbands.  In fact, he is so possessive and feels so entitled to his last duchess that he says to his auditor, "none puts by / The curtain I have drawn for you, but I."  He keeps the portrait of his dead wife behind a curtain so as to hide her from anyone except those with whom he chooses to share her.  He determines who gets to see and enjoy her, and to him, this is the way it should be.  Further, he treats her portrait as just another possession, as he finishes the poem by saying, "Notice Neptune, though, / Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity, / Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!"  Her portrait is only one more beautiful thing that he owns, just like the sculpture of the god of the sea, a sculpture with which he seems to have as much emotional connection as he does with the painting of his dead wife. 

In fact, it was his last duchess's unwillingness to save all her smiles and blushes just for him that caused him to "[give] commands; / Then all smiles stopped together."  It sounds as though, displeased with her uniform pleasure and gratitude whether a gift were small (like a branch of flowers) or large (like his status and important name), he had her killed so that he could start over with a new wife who would allow herself to be possessed by him completely.  During her life, he was unable to possess her, and so he reduced her to a portrait that only he is allowed to control.  The duke expresses no remorse or sadness that she is gone, because he feels none; he only feels pride in the possession of her lovely portrait because he can truly possess it in a way that he could never possess her when she was alive. 

What is the Duke's view on women's role in society in "My Last Duchess"?

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" is a dramatic monologue set ion much the same imaginary construction of Renaissance Italy as that of Jacobean revenge tragedy. Within this setting, marriage was primarily an economic arrangement, rather than having the sort of romantic expectations of the Brownings' own marriage. The Duke negotiates for a new bride in straightforwardly economic terms:

The Count your master's known munificence

Is ample warrant that no just pretence

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;

He is also often described as a collector of beautiful objects, and as well as seeing women as part of an economic system, also views them in terms of aesthetic exteriors, just as he views his art works. He is possessive of both.

What does "My Last Duchess" suggest about the Duke's view of women?

The monologue by the Duke clearly shows him as a cold, selfish, arrrogant, and extremely proud man. His attitude towards women is that they are chattels, property. This, of course, is especially true of his relationship with his deceased wife. She seems from his description to have been a kind and loving person, but he wanted her to be the mirror image of himself--cold, arrogant, and proud. It is interesting that he refers to the portrait of the wife he had murdered as "My last duchess." It hints that she was not his only duchess and that he might have had several wives before this "last" or "latest" one. Otherwise, it would have been more natural for him to say, "That's my first duchess." The phrase "My last duchess" also makes the reader fear for the future of the young woman he is presently negotiating to marry. He could have her killed too, if she doesn't measure up to his high standards; but it seems remotely possible that he is in the habit of marrying women for their dowries and then disposing of them in order to find his "next" duchess with another dowry. It almost seems as if his valuable art collection might have been paid for with dowries. The reader can only wonder what sort of an impression the Duke is making on his visitor and what report that representative will take back to the father of the girl the Duke is proposing to marry.

How does "My Last Duchess" reflect social hierarchy and patriarchal views?

Robert Browning's dramatic monologue "My Last Duchess" is set in Italy, probably in the 1500s. It exhibits a social hierarchy that was in place then and patriarchal views that were common not only then, but also in Victorian England, when Browning wrote the piece. Regarding social hierarchy, we see characters in the poem who fall into various strata. At the top, we have Duke Ferrara, the speaker in the poem. He is in the process of negotiating a marriage between himself and the daughter of an unnamed Count. In ranks of nobility, a Duke ranks highest, followed by Marquess, Count, Viscount, Baron, and Baronet. The Count would need to pay a generous dowry for the Duke to marry beneath himself in this way, thus Ferrara's reference to "the Count, you master's, known munificence." The other characters in the poem--the Count's servant to whom Ferrara is speaking, the last Duchess, and the Count's daughter--would be somewhat equal on the social scale. Although the women are from noble lines and seem to have privileges, in reality they are nothing more than property that can be bought and sold, which is happening here. The servant, then, although he is not nobility, actually has more rights of self-determination than the noblewomen. 

Patriarchal views are rife in the poem. As previously mentioned, the ability of a father to "sell" his daughter via marriage leaves no room for a woman's choice. Selling isn't even the right term, for the father must pay the future husband a dowry to take on the responsibility of his daughter for the rest of her life. The absolute control Ferrara wielded over his last Duchess is the sobering and appalling theme of this poem. He felt he should be able to control whom she spoke to, what she looked at, and even what made her blush. Because she did not yield to his control, he did away with her. Although it isn't explicitly stated and Browning, probably facetiously, later gave a different interpretation, most readers assume that Ferrara murdered his last Duchess. That she even knew she was displeasing her husband is unlikely. He tells the Count's servant that he felt he was above giving her lessons in proper behavior. She should have known the proper role of a wife--to look only to her husband's wants and needs and never to her own or others'. Reading between the lines, we get a picture of a young woman who was kind, expressive, and innocent. The attitude and actions of Ferrara and anyone else who knew of the situation and didn't oppose it represent the far extreme on the spectrum of patriarchal dominance. We get one glimmer that not everyone functions under that extreme view. The servant appears to want to make a mad dash away from the Duke once he realizes the fate of the last Duchess, but the Duke restrains him, saying, "Nay, we'll go together down, sir." Finally, the Duke points out a sculpture of Neptune taming a sea horse. This is symbolic of the unassailable patriarchal rule Ferrara embraces: His last Duchess (and any future Duchess) must be as submissive to and easily controlled by him as a seahorse would be to Neptune, the god of the sea.

Why does the Duke in "My Last Duchess" refer to his next wife as fair and dowry?

The key to understanding the poem "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning is to understand how Browning uses the conventions of the dramatic monologue. In this, as in most of Browning's dramatic monologues, characters' self-revalations usually end up showing how under what might appear to be conventionally successful or normal exteriors lie hidden flaws. In the case of the Duke, he is often described by literary critics as a "collector", of people and riches as well as art objects.

In the way the Duke describes his last and next duchess, we get a sense of his extreme possessiveness and the way he values objects as symbols of his status. When he gracefully states that the daughter's "fair" (attractive) self will suffice, and that he will be satisfied with a reasonable dowry, his graceful phrasing masks a desire to negotiate as large a dowry as possible. He also is thinking of his future wife as an ornament like his art objects in appreciating her physical attractiveness. 

What does the Duke say about the dowry in "My Last Duchess"?

Having told the story of his last duchess to the emissary who has been sent by a count to negotiate a marriage for his daughter to the duke, the duke says to this emissary,

The Count your master’s known munificence Is ample warrant that no just pretense Of mine for dowry will be disallowed.

In "My Last Duchess," what does the title suggest about the Duke's view on women?

Excellent question. It is of course important to remember to always analyse titles when studying works of literature. They are not just picked at random and are the result of careful thought and deliberation. The title of this excellent dramatic monologue seems to introduce so much about the Duke and his attitude towards women. Note the possessive use of "My" at the beginning of the title. This seems to foreshadow the complete control and mastery of his wife that is made clear from the poem, whilst also indicating the way that he saw his last wife as a possession, much like the statue of Neptune taming a seahorse that he moves on to showing the envoy at the end of the poem.

Interestingly, the middle word, "last," seems to suggest that this last duchess is just one of a string of many duchesses, as it implies that there were others before this last duchess and will be more in the future. This helps present the Duke's attitude towards women because they are presented as disposable objects. He disposed of his last one and is now trying to obtain another. They are not permanent fixtures, and ironically it seems that the painting is more important and valued by the Duke than his last wife ever was.

How is the title "My Last Duchess" fitting for the duke's attitude toward the duchess and women in general?

Imagine a wealthy, powerful man who is in between wives.  (There are probably men around just like this right now!)  He is showing someone around his house, and he points to a portrait. He says, "That's my last wife."  He might emphasize the word "last" as he says this. What would you think of this man?  I would think he is someone who "collects" women as trophies or objects, someone who is now looking for a new object to collect. (In fact, today we refer to such wives as "trophy wives."  There is a certain contempt about his attitude, pointing out that he is important enough to acquire women as he pleases. The fact that this is a duchess lends to our feeling that the narrator is wealthy and powerful. Without even reading the poem, the reader can glean a certain amount of information about this narrator.

My own father, capitalizing on this title, frequently introduced my mother as his first wife as a joke.   The joke was that he could get rid of her any time he pleased and go looking for a second wife.  (They were married for 62 years.)