The course of true love never did run smoothly

The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smoothly In the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare, it is true that “the course of true love never did run smoothly”. The two couples Hermia and Lysander and Helena and Demetrius both experience many difficulties in trying to attain love. The law of Athen’s, gender and Robin Goodfellow’s acts all play a role in the couples’ pursuit for love. The law of Athen’s in the play didn’t permit a female to marry the man of her choice unless he was the same choice of her father. “As she is mine I may dispose of her”, Egeus, Hermia’s father, says this because in the past a daughter was regarded as a father’s property and was forced to obey her father. Hermia had to obey her father’s wish of her marrying Demetrius and not her love, Lysander because she was under Athenian law. If she didn’t obey her father Hermia was given two other choices, by Theseus, the Duke of Athens, who controlled the laws. The two other choices were “either to die or to abjure from the society of men”. As well as the Athenian law, gender played a role in the course of love, as women were not allowed to confess their love or speak up against a man. A woman’s gender also prevented her from experiencing the freedom of the choice of love a man had. In the play Hermia is forced to obey her father because she is female and Helena who loves Demetrius has no say for her love. “We cannot fight for love as men may do”. Helena says this because she cannot gain her lost love back who has been unfaithful to her in spite of her faithfulness to him, such as when Lysander “loved” her when he was under the influence of magic because of the fairy, Robin Goodfellow’s careless mistake while he was intervening in the love life of the couples. Robin Goodfellow put the love potion into the wrong person’s eyes because he mistook Lysander for Demetrius. We see his mistake when Oberon says “What has thou done? Thou has mistaken quite, and laid the