Much Ado About Nothing’s title proclaims that sex is central to this play, as “nothing” was Elizabethan slang for vagina. There is indeed “much ado”—much consternation and uproar—around women’s bodies and sexuality in this play. Debates over who has sex with whom—and who is allowed to have sex with whom—produce much of the play’s drama, as well as providing fodder for its jokes. Above all, Much Ado’s central characters want to ensure that sex occurs within, and not across, socioeconomic class categories.

In Renaissance Europe, women’s reputations rested on the concept of virginity, the idea that women were different before and after having sex with men. Being perceived as a virgin meant a single woman could more readily access marriage, respect, and resources. This rule did not apply to men, who did not risk losing social or financial stability if society perceived them as people who had sex.

The idea of virginity idealized women who did not have sex by equating abstinence with purity, and sex with contamination. This equation had to do with class: families with money and high rank wanted to preserve and protect “pure” noble bloodlines, and to make sure everyone knew whose babies were whose. In Much Ado About Nothing, it is therefore a shock and a scandal if Hero—the daughter of a governor—so much as kisses someone before she is married.