Inviting Destruction into the Duchess of Malfi It has been claimed that, through her stubbornness, the Duchess invites her own destruction. However, this statement must be considered from both a 17th century and a modern perspective. This statement is firmly rooted in the issue of human rights, and this issue has changed and evolved enormously over the past few centuries, since the writing of Duchess of Malfi. The society of the early 17th century was very different from ours today; At the time, women were far below men in stature and respect – they had no rights, and husbands and other male family members treated them more like property than human beings. Although most women accepted this, there were, as always, those who rebelled – the Duchess was one of those rebels. She refuses to accept society's rules, instead choosing her own path to follow - an unpredictable and dangerous path, as we ultimately see with her capture, torture, and death at the hands of her own brothers. For example, in Act I, Scene II, no sooner have Ferdinand and the Cardinal warned her against remarrying, than she and Antonio arrange to marry - a perfect example of her stubborn attitude. She is also remarkably open with Antonio about the whole affair; indeed, it is she who takes their relationship from a light flirtation to marriage itself, when she gives her wedding ring to Antonio, saying: And I have sworn never to part with it, but to my second husband. shocked 17th-century audiences, who might have expected the man to be the more confident of the two, even though this seems perfectly natural to us today. It was her will - her rejection of pr...... middle of paper ... accepted and what was not, and she chose to do things her way. The claim that she brought about her own destruction is probably valid; however, his stubbornness did not cause his destruction - the madness of his brothers was responsible; his obstinacy was only the match that lit the fuse. It wasn't society's fault, it was the Duchess and her brothers' fault that they didn't fit into that society. The Duchess didn't want to adapt, so she expected everything else to adapt and, in doing so, invited her own destruction. Even until the end, she remains strong-willed and decisive, refusing to show the slightest fear of her impending death or the slightest regret for her past actions: BOSOLA Doesn't death scare you? companyIn the other world.