Did Shakespeare Rape Someone?

 In the section of Shakespeare's life I called "A Tale of Two Anne's" and under a sub-heading called "Not so sweet Ophelia". I mentioned the death of Katherine Hamlet, who drowned in the Avon. The story being that Katherine was in love with Shakespeare and had a fight with Shakespeare's first wife, which resulted in her death either by accident or by murder. The resulting guilt driving her to drown herself in the Avon and the source of the death of Ophelia in the play Hamlet, who floats down the river. However when you think about Ophelia (in the play) doesn't commit murder and if Shakespeare knew about her dealings with Anne, would have found some way to add that to the play. 

So what else would have caused Katherine to drown herself in the Avon? So I went back to the fact Shakespeare had quite an attraction to women, which I have established in other parts of his life as being true. And that Katherine did indeed pursue him. He could have of course rejected her, with unrequited love being the cause of her suicide. However unlike the character called Hamlet, Shakespeare never seems to rejected any female, from my research on him. So I do not buy into a rejected and broken heart theory. But that leads to another more appalling theory on her death. That of sexual violence. 

I don't believe that Shakespeare needed to find some female, grab her then rape her. Since basically he could pick and choose who he wanted sex with. Everything points to the fact that Katherine knew William and probably had feelings for him. Nevertheless having feelings doesn't give a person an open invitation to have sexual intercourse with someone. And Shakespeare could have forced himself on her. From what we know of Elizabethan times the saying of "no" by a woman to a man wasn't treated as seriously as it is today. This is because they viewed women as property. The first form being the property of the father. After marriage the property of the husband. Indeed even the word "rape" is derived from the Latin "raptus" meaning theft of property. And even though rape carried the death sentence it was really about the disgrace of the father or husband and not the woman that was considered the most important aspect. If there was no father the crime would not have taken as serious. And it was only taken serious in the husband's case if another man had raped his wife, had the husband forced himself on her the woman had little chance of getting a conviction, unless the husband had actually caused bodily harm to her. Indeed for many married women it was just the case of lie back and think of England, when having sex. Especially for the arranged marriages. 

That leaves us with the position of the woman in that time. For most women in order to have a decent life it required them to be a virgin on the marriage bed. This was an aspect of the marriage ceremony and rituals itself. With the sheets from the marriage bed showing the blood being used to say the marriage had been consummated. In the case where the deed had already been done by the couple before, then some animal blood would have been obtained and dually deposited on the sheets for those wanting to know how it went. However that applied to only those who had already had sex together before marriage. A woman that had already lost her virginity was soiled goods in the eyes of an Elizabethan man. Unless she had already been married of course and the husband was dead. Therefore a raped single woman was certainly not a price of any future husband. And the woman would have know that. Still that doesn't change how a woman would feel about being raped and that hasn't changed over time. The shame and guilt as well as her status in society then would have made any woman suicidal, just like it does today. And even if Katherine Hamlet had a family, telling one or more of them about it might not have most likely helped her. They would have had their own prejudices on the subject and they might well have been more favourable to Shakespeare than her. Especially if she had made it clear to them she had feelings for William. We have no idea of Kate's standing in her family. She could have been the black sheep of it. She could even have been an inspiration for Kate in the Taming of The Shrew. Kate the cursed. Though clearly not the inspiration of the "man hater" concept!

So to sum up an alternative reason of why Katherine Hamlet drowned in the Avon, was that Shakespeare had forced himself on her and she could not live with the shame of the act and so drowned herself. 

It must be pointed out that we do not know if she was raped, or was guilty of causing the death of Shakespeare's wife. We do know that drowning wasn't uncommon amongst women back then, due to the need to fetch water from rivers and ponds. Elizabethan clothing for women also made them less likely to float in the water, as the materials they were made of often took in the water making them very heavy. So somebody falling in on a slippy bank had much difficulty getting out of the water due to their clothes, than what a modern person would.