Talk:Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare)

Title of article
Don't think this is a very good title for the article - Shakespear is spelled in varying ways and I'm not 100% sure that this fits the naming conventions. She is, however, only famous for being his wife so what should it be called? violet/riga 16:11, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I think that's why it's named the way it is. The spelling matches what we have the Bard's article titled. We have to have the suffix, of course, because of the clash with the actress.   &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 15:38, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I know. Random IP contributor. But why not title the article Anne Shakespeare née Hathaway? It differentiates it from the actress, does it not? -Random IP User — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.99.121 (talk) 19:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Because she is known as Anne Hathaway, not Anne Shakespeare. Wikipedia biographies are titled according to the name they are most commonly known by. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 13:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

On that subject, there is no mention in the article about her name. Why was she known by her maiden name? Was it common in that era? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.43.51.142 (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I think I can answer the question. No, actually, it is the reverse that is true. Anne would have been known as Mrs. Shakespeare to everybody, including her husband (properly she would have been addressed as "Goodwife Shakespeare" or 'Mistress Shakespeare," since her husband was first a craftsman and later a gentleman with a coat of arms.)  It is bordering on the bizarre that scholars continue to call her by a name she stopped answering to in her mid 20s when an entire town called her Mrs. Shakespeare.§  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liviamaxima14 (talk • contribs) 04:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you will find that while her public name was Mrs William Shakespeare her name amongst her intimate family continued to be Anne Hathaways. The one was her married name the other was her own name. The hybrid "Mrs Anne Shakespeare" is a more modern invention. ¬¬¬¬ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremytrewindixon (talk • contribs) 04:46, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Tourist attraction
Anne Hathaway's Cottage is quite a tourist attraction near Stratford and may be worthy of mention. As very little is known of Anne Hathaway perhaps a small link "Anne Hathaway was also the name of William Shakespeare" could be added to the present Anne Hathaway article - there is a bit of information on Shakespeare's page already. violet/riga 16:27, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * As for your first comment, go ahead and add it. :-)
 * As for your second comment, the main disambiguation page does state that Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife. Do you mean the article about the actress, Anne Hathaway?
 * For both of these changes, be bold and make them. :-)  &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 15:38, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * The main disambiguation page was created on 14 Aug 2004, the day after the first post in this section. Before that there was only a page on the actress. - Matthew238 01:42, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
 * For both of these changes, be bold and make them. :-)  &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 15:38, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Bizarre wording
At 26 when they married, she was eight years Shakespeare's senior. Sounds weird. Being x years somebody's senior doesn't depend on your age. Mayavada 12 Mar 2005
 * Looks like someone changed it. :-)  &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 15:38, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I changed it to mention their ages (26 and 18).  --Grmagne 12:32, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Anne Hathaway was 26 whilst William was 18 when they got married and they had 3 children called Susannah, Judith and Hamnet. Judith and Hamnet were twins and they were baptised in the Holy Trinity Church. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.232.86 (talk) 17:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC) Anne Hathaway's childhood was spent in a house near where they had sex in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. What? Who had sex? Why is this important to the location of her childhood house? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jpowersbaseball (talk • contribs) 12:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Anne Hathaway Shakespeare???
Why has this page been moved to "Anne Hathaway Shakespeare" (see here)?

Whatever the shortcomings of the former title, the new one strikes me as just plain daft. Does anyone want to defend it? If no, can an admin please fix? AndyJones 20:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The brackets have been reinstated, as she is known as Anne Hathaway, not Anne Hathaway Shakespeare. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Germaine Greer's new book
I've added a bit of stuff from Aunt Germaine's recent effort (which is outstanding piece of imaginative scholarship BTW, thought provoking and helpful about Mr Shakepeare too) haven't added page refeences but will ultimately.Jeremytrewindixon 03:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Fiction about Mrs Shakepeare
Robert Nye's novel Mrs Shakepeare, I think 1993, also worth mentioning. Notable for scene in which Will sodomises Ann on that famous second-best bed. Jeremytrewindixon 03:58, 10 October 2007 (UTC)Also, there isn't a lot about her background except a small paragraph —Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.252.128.7 (talk) 16:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Identity is widow, rather than wife
Earlier today, I corrected her identity in the first line from wife to widow. That was reverted by a user who claimed my correction was 'bizarre'; that she was a wife for much longer than she was a widow. However, all widows were previously wives, but not all wives become widows, hence why widow is the better term for a woman who remained married to her husband until the husband's death, and whom did not remarry. The argument that being a wife for longer than being a widow makes said woman's identity wife rather than widow is nonsense: Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford are both currently described in the first sentence of their articles as widow, not wife, despite the fact that they were both wives for far longer than they have been widows. A widow's identity does not revert to wife when she dies, her identity is still widow. Thus, Anne Hathaway's identity has been widow for over 390 years, which is many times longer than she was a wife for. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 15:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. I might entertain the idea if she was still alive while, but otherwise this change seems absurd to me. More to the point, none of the relevant sources describe her as Shakespeare's widow but as his wife. --Xover (talk) 16:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I just added a short addition to the introduction to write in the year in which she was widowed. Snowman (talk) 21:34, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Nancy Reagen and Betty Ford are alive. They are currently the widow of their notable husband. All married historical figures who never divorced will have been a widow or widower, but we do not describe them as such. Calpurnia Pisonis is the last wife of Julius Caesar, not the widow of Caesar. John Adams is not referred to as the widower of Abagail. There are many other examples. Paul B (talk) 23:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Second Best Bed
I remember reading that the best bed stayed with the house, like a door or a fireplace, so this may be why Shakespeare willed the second best bed to his wife. Can't remember where I read it, though. 69.104.55.200 (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * In the BBC podcast "Great Lives" featuring Shakespeare available here, one of the guests, Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre, claims that the 2d best bed was the marital bed and hence the appropriate bequest to his wife (showing his love to her). Will this do to satisfy the 'citation needed' tag on the main page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.221.152.231 (talk) 23:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Move discussion
Another page move proposal has been made to make the Anne Hathaway (actress) article the primary topic of "Anne Hathaway", and move the Anne Hathaway page to Anne Hathaway (disambiguation). Please make any comments at Talk:Anne Hathaway (actress). Thank you. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Rather rambling
The text of this article rambles around quite a bit, perhaps it could be checked for consistency. Wistchars (talk) 13:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you be more specific? Paul B (talk) 14:01, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I read the article from top to bottom, not as part of a proofreading task, but merely out of interest in the topic. I noticed that the text started to become very inconsistent and difficult to follow around the "Shakespeare's will" section and subsequent sections. Do you agree with me? If not perhaps it is the fault of my way of reading things. Wistchars (talk) 15:15, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess I haven't read it through myself for a while. I agree that it gets a bit confusing around that point, though I don't see anything that's actually "inconsistent". I think the reason is that it refers to her younger daughter Judith's marriage, but not to the older daughter Susanna's. It then starts talking about the "second best bed", without really explaining what that refers to, and then suddenly mentioning Susanna's husband in the middle of the discussion. As for the 'literary references' section, that starts in the 20th century, and says nothing about the Victorian era. Essentially Anne is typically portrayed as a traditional 'good wife' in Victorian fiction. There's a novel about her, which should be mentioned. Then after Frank Harris's books she gets to be portrayed as an a conniving slut or a "shrew" for a period, before more varied portrayals come in. The problem with these sections is that it's difficult to organise them, as people just add books, plays, films etc in an ad hoc way, but I think the evolution of her portrayal could be more clearly outlined. Paul B (talk) 16:02, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I've done my best to smooth it out, adding some material on Victorian literature. Paul B (talk) 17:35, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Latin Tomb Inscription
Looking at a photo of the Ann Shakespeare's tomb inscription and playing with Bable fish interpretor I believe I have spotted two minor errors in the Latin of the tomb inscription, which is in ref 13. I tried to edit ref 13, but don't see how to do it. Here are the changes I think should be made to ref 13 latin:

1) (line 4) Exatvt => Exeat ('exeat is clear in photo and means 'out'. Latin translator does not recognize exatvt or exatut)

2) (line 6) 'et petet' => 'et astra petet' (In photo there is clearly is a word between 'et' and 'petet', which looks like 'as??a' or as?ra. This is probably 'astra', which translates to 'stars' and is in the Wiki english translation). 24.61.212.124 (talk) 20:38, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I transcribed the inscription by hand from another website. I probably missed out "astra" by accident. The other changes are in the version that I copied. From what I can gather, the original says "Exeat christi", but some versions add "Ut" (or "vt") to the end of "Exeat" for grammatical reasons. Paul B (talk) 13:00, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Other William Shakespeares
Dear Mr. Barlow, By leaving my contribution in (with regard to there were other people with the surname of Shakespeare), this would have informed Wikepedia readers that there were other people during Shakespeare's time who had the surname "Shakespeare," and I went on to show how the name was spelled in other ways. I disliked it that someone (not you)would assume that seeing the name "Wm Shaxpere" on a marriage licence would automatically mean it to be the playwright William Shakespeare. I didn't like it that someone felt so certain that the "Whately" name on the marriage license was "Hathaway" but just misspelled badly. So, we are supposed to assume that this marriage license was definitely the one filed by William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway? To me, especially in matters of history, we have to be more certain. The purpose of my contribution was to provide more information to further enlighten the reader. Okbrand (talk) 01:54, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, Oakbrand. I removed your addition for several reasons. It was not properly cited for a start. There was just a vague reference to a book. That's not a big problem in itself. I did check the source, which is online, and yes, there was a "Manasses Shakespeare" living in London who got married in 1710. There's also a Henry Shaksper, Jonathan Shakspeare and John Shackspeare who married during the 17th century. It's not really news that other people existed with the name Shakespeare, or variations on it. None of this is directly connected to William or his marriage, as A) none of them have the first name William, and B) none of these marriages were registered in Worcester in 1582. You've used a book about London to make an argument about the Diocese of Worcester. That's what we call WP:SYN. If anything the evidence indicates how unlikely such a coincidence would be, since even in heavily-populated London there are no other "Wm Shakespeares" getting married at all between 1521 and 1869, a period of more than 300 years. In fact research has been undertaken to find out whether there would have been another William Shakespeare who, by amazing coincidence, was getting married to another woman called Anne at almost exactly the same time in the same diocese. William Ingram in The business of playing: the beginnings of the adult professional theater in Elizabethan London (Cornell University Press, 1992, p.24) states that there is no evidence in surviving records of any other William Shakespeares of marriageable age in the diocese of Worcester. No evidence of an Anne Whateley has even been found either. The arguments concerning this issue are given in more detail in the article on Anne Whateley. Paul B (talk) 08:35, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just modified 3 one external links on Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes: When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20060113091013/http://www.robotwisdom.com:80/jaj/ulysses/scylla.html to http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/scylla.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051201083018/http://www.robotwisdom.com:80/jaj/ulysses/oxen1b.html to http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/ulysses/oxen1b.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051201065930/http://www.robotwisdom.com:80/jaj/shakespeare.html to http://www.robotwisdom.com/jaj/shakespeare.html

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 20:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 6 December 2016

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved Fuortu (talk) 19:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare's wife) → Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) – Must be very consistent with other disambiguators using "wife of". Also formal. This isn't a rehash of primacy of "Anne Hathaway". George Ho (talk) 19:14, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support First: the person; second: reference related to ~person's role; third: the external reference. GregKaye 11:16, 7 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Support per nomination and GregKaye. &mdash;Roman Spinner (talk)(contribs) 02:03, 12 December 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians, I have just modified one external link on Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes: When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080510192302/http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/content/view/50/50/ to http://www.shakespeare.org.uk/content/view/50/50/

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 17:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

To all the editors who have contributed to this article
Well done! I genuinely enjoyed reading this article, and learned quite a bit that was unfamiliar to me. Schazjmd (talk) 22:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC) As did I. - Lisa —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ljadwin (talk • contribs) 12:26, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 22 November 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. There is a strong consensus in favour of the current title. (closed by non-admin page mover) Lennart97 (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) → Anne Hathaway (16th century) – We should avoid marking women as belonging to men. Georgia guy (talk) 14:42, 22 November 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Oppose per WP:NCPDAB. This is what she is known for, and there are no other Anne Hathaways known for their marriages to need a date-based disambiguator here. If the current title is rejected, then the NCPDAB fallback would be Anne Hathaway (died 1623) (which was in the 17th century) Iffy★Chat -- 17:45, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Iffy, please note that this is not a proposed move to "Anne Hathaway (16th century death)". Georgia guy (talk) 17:56, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose as noted above this is what she's primarily known for, I don't really think the title suggests she belongs to William but merely she's his wife. If a man was primarily known for being a woman's husband we would also use it.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:01, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose move. Bad argument with no basis in policy.  O.N.R.  (talk) 19:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose - As other editors have mentioned, her marriage to Shakespeare is the main reason why she's notable. ModernDayTrilobite (talk) 20:17, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
 * oppose per WP:NCPDAB we really don't know much about here besides she was married to shakespeare—blindlynx (talk) 17:50, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Iffy; Crouch, Swale; O.N.R.; ModernDayTrilobite and —blindlynx. Family relationships have been used as parenthetical qualifiers on a number of previous occasions — Wang Yi (wife of Zhao Ang), Pharaoh's daughter (wife of Solomon), Calpurnia (wife of Caesar), Eunoe (wife of Bogudes), Gomer (wife of Hosea), Naamah (wife of Solomon), Laodice (sister-wife of Mithridates VI of Pontus), Laodice (wife of Mithridates II of Commagene) or Mariamne (third wife of Herod), to say nothing of numerous other entries, such as Iotapa (daughter of Artavasdes I), Nysa (daughter of Nicomedes III of Bithynia), Pompeia (daughter of Pompey the Great), Salome (daughter of Herod the Great) or Porcia (sister of Cato the Younger). For a lengthy discussion of using parenthetical qualifiers to delineate centuries-ago family relationships, see Talk:Pontius Pilate's wife. For the equivalent of such a discussion regarding a modern-day personality, see Talk:Sarah Jane Brown/Archive 10. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 10:38, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I thought I remembered a discussion about Tony Blair's wife, but it turns out it was Brown I was thinking of. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:46, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose On a Fandom Wiki, there was a similar discussion a few years ago. We changed it to the person's occupation and not their status as another character's spouse––something they were known for.  In my opinion, it is just confusing.  People have, and are a part of, families.  Sometimes these familial relationships become what they are known for, and pointing this out, in my opinion, does not objectify (dehumanize) them.Joesom333 (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Joesom333, please show me the wiki your discussion took place on as well as the page move it was about. Georgia guy (talk) 14:48, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Here you go, Georgia guy: Here is the page. Joesom333 (talk) 14:58, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Why remove direction?
I dobn't understand why you remove

 For American actress, see Anne Hathaway  in this page

Vwqvj qwhiu (talk) 04:44, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Jimbotalk

 * Copied from User talk:Jimbo Wales. Sandizer  (talk) 05:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Dear Mr Wales,

I am a regular user of Wikipedia and I noticed the following comment in the article of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife: “Harris believed that "Shakespeare's loathing for his wife was measureless" because of his entrapment by her and that this was the spur to his decision to leave Stratford and pursue a career in the theatre.” Apparently in the opinion of this scholar, Ms Hathaway entrapped Shakespeare by getting pregnant. A woman does not entrap a man by getting pregnant. A woman cannot get pregnant without the input of a man. He is responsible for his own actions (and body fluids). Moreover, at that time, she had little choice but to get pregnant...If this opinion needs to be included, it should say something like: "According to Harris, Shakespeare measureless loathing for his wife was caused by his lack of desire to marry her after getting her pregnant." Right?

Young men and women read these comments from scholars and, because they are included in Wikipedia, they may think this type of opinion is valid; whereas it is obviously sexist and misogynistic. Should Wikipedia publish misogynistic opinions? My kids are likely to come across Anne Hathaway in their studies and read this article. Could you please get it changed for the sake of the next generation's education? I am not a regular contributor so my changes will no doubt be removed from such an important article. Many thanks and wish you a wonderful Christmas. Sofia. Sofiairiondo (talk) 13:51, 20 December 2023 (UTC)


 * @Sofiairiondo. Talk:Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) may be a better place to post your message. – Novem Linguae (talk) 15:30, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Indeed, that's good advice. Speaking only to broad general principles, which may be helpful to some degree in this case, we will often be confronted with opinions stated by reliable sources in the past which strike us as offensive or otherwise problematic today.  We shouldn't always therefore simply hide those views or dismiss them out of hand, but we should take care to contextualize them appropriately.  For example, in this case Sophia is objecting (rightly, in my view) to the old fashioned view of "entrapment" and so rather than use the word ourselves (in the voice of Wikipedia, as it were) we should quote from the original if that's possible.  Reading the rest of the passage we see that Harris's view is far from universally held, which is all the more reason to treat it with due caution.  It is noteworthy that the word 'entrapment' doesn't appear in the source.  (Although a cursory reading of the passage in question leaves little doubt that Harris thought in those terms more or less at least. source)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:47, 20 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact we have an essay, WP:PRESENTISM related to this area, in that we should not apply modern sensibilities to sourced content that wasn't seen as offensive in the past. M asem (t) 16:08, 20 December 2023 (UTC)