Out of the Wings

La fuerza de la costumbre (1610-1615), Guillén de Castro

Titles

English title: The Force of Habit
Date written: sometime between 1610 and 1615
First publication date: 1625
Keywords: morality > honour, identity > gender, identity > sexuality, family > marriage, family > brothers/sisters, identity > gender cross dressing, love > desire
Genre and type: comedy

Pitch

Is gender learned or innate? This controversial play asks the question: what happens if you raise a boy to sew and behave as a girl, and raise his sister to fight as a soldier?

Synopsis

Brother and sister, separated at birth, grow up apart—Felix is brought up by his mother to speak softly, fear thunder and stitch, while Hipolita grows up with her father in a war zone, learning to wield a sword. When they are thrown together when their parents reunite, they are shocked by each other’s cross-gendered ways; Felix teaches his sister how to wear high heels and Hipolita shows him how to use a weapon. Through the power of love, Felix for Leonor and Hipolita for Don Luis, the siblings slowly begin to drift into more conventional gender roles. Hipolita finds her manly determination slipping away into demure and self-questioning ways, and Felix learns to stand up for himself and fight for the woman he loves. Both brother and sister overcome ‘the force of habit’ of the way they were raised and adopt traditional social roles, but their journey to love and social acceptance is highly unconventional.

Critical response

This play has not been studied nearly as much as Castro’s Cid plays, but Thacker (2002) and McKendrick (1974) have praised the play, the latter describing it as ‘one of the most charming comedies the siglo de oro produced’ (98, quoted in Thacker 23). Thacker looks at the play from the point of view of gender and social role-play, writing, ‘Castro’s neglected play dramatizes the importance of social role-play to a functioning society, and the dangers to the individual of either not knowing the appropriate social language or having one’s signals misunderstood. The play charts the feminization of a mujer varonil, and the simultaneous masculinization of her effeminate brother, a less common hombre femenil’ (23).

McKendrick, Melveena. 1974. Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the mujer varonil. London, Cambridge University Press
Thacker, Jonathan. 2002. ‘Patriarchy in Action: Guillén de Castro’s La fuerza de la costumbre and the Distribution of Roles’ and ‘Patriarchal Excess and the Emergence of the Desiring Self’. In Role-Play and the World as Stage in the comedia, pp. 19-48. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press

Editions

Castro, Guillén de. 1625. Segunda Parte de las comedias de Don Guillén de Castro, 4 vols. Valencia, Miguel Sorolla
This is the first printing of this play.

There are 3 manuscript copies in the Biblioteca Nacional (Bruerton, ‘The Chronology’ 150).
Castro, Guillén de. 1925-27. La fuerza de la costumbre. In Obras de Gullén de Castro y Bellvís, ed. Eduardo Juliá Martínez, vol.3, pp. 39-76. Madrid, Real Academia Española, Imprenta de la Revista de Archivos, Bibliotecas y Museos
There are 3 manuscript copies in the Biblioteca Nacional (Bruerton, ‘The Chronology’ 150).

Useful readings and websites

Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher. 1992. Love's cure; or, The martial maid, ed. Marea Mitchell. Nottingham, Nottingham Drama Texts
This play shows marked similarities with Castro's play La fuerza de la costumbre, and was possibly based upon it.
Beaumont, Francis, 1718. Love’s cure: or, the martial maid. A comedy. Written by Mr. Francis Beaumont, and Mr. John Fletcher. London. (Online Publication)
This play shows marked similarities with Castro's play La fuerza de la costumbre, and was possibly based upon it.

Full text online: Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale Group

http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/ECCO?n=10&vrsn=1.0&ste=11&tiPG=1&c=1&docNum=

CW110879521&stp=Author&locID=oxford&srchtp=a&af=BN&ae=T121711&dd=0&dc=flc&d4=

0.33&SU=0LRK&finalAuth=true
Bond, R. Warwick. 1935. ‘On Six Plays in Beaumont and Fletcher, 1679’. The Review of English Studies, 11, 43, 257-275
This work contends that , ‘The main action, the correction by love-passion of natural sex-instincts perverted by habit, is closely borrowed from a comedy La Fuerza de la Costumbre of the Valencian poet Guillen de Castro, author of two dozen plays, including the two parts of Las Mocedades del Cid, on which Corneille founded his more famous tragedy’ (Bond 1935, p. 263).
Bruerton, Courtney. 1944. ‘The Chronology of the Comedias of Guillén de Castro’, Hispanic Review, 12, 89-151
This is a wonderful resource which deals with this play on p. 123. Bruerton dates La fuerza de la costumbre ‘1610?-20? (1610?-15?)’ p. 150, and says it is an authentic play by Castro.
García Lorenzo, Luciano. 1976. El teatro de Guillén de Castro. Barcelona, Planeta (in Spanish)
McKendrick, Melveena. 1974. Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the mujer varonil. London, Cambridge University Press
For La sibila Casandra, see pp. 45-51.

For La fuerza de la costumbre, see pp. 98-102.
McKendrick, Melveena. 1989. 'Guillén de Castro (1569-1631)'. In Theatre in Spain 1490-1700, pp. 127-9. Cambridge, University Press
Oliphant, E. H. C. 1936. ‘Three Beaumont and Fletcher Plays’. The Review of English Studies, 12, 46, 197-202
This takes direct issue with Bond’s thesis (see Warwick R. Bond, 1935), not that the source of Fletcher's play 'Love's Cure' is Castro’s, but he remains of the view that Beaumont had a hand in it.
Thacker, Jonathan. 2002. ‘Patriarchy in Action: Guillén de Castro’s La fuerza de la costumbre and the Distribution of Roles’ and ‘Patriarchal Excess and the Emergence of the Desiring Self’. In Role-Play and the World as Stage in the comedia, pp. 19-48. Liverpool, Liverpool University Press
Thacker, Jonathan. 2007. ‘Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, and The First Generation’. In A Companion to Golden Age Theatre, pp. 56-91. Woodbridge, Tamesis
Weiger, John G. 1958. ‘Another Look at the Biography of Guillén de Castro’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 10, 1, 4
This work includes a full chronology of Castro’s life and works, several wide-ranging chapters, and a fantastic bibliography up to its publication date.

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Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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Out of the Wings

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La fuerza de la costumbre (1610-1615), Guillén de Castro

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