Courtly Love 

Courtly love is the highly conventionalised tradition of a knight devoting himself to a noblewoman, typically seen in the renaissance period of literature. It is clear to see that within Much Ado there are two very perplexing and intertwining love stories; that of Claudio and Hero and of Benedick and Beatrice. Although deemed a sweet young couple, Claudio and Hero are found victim to arguably the biggest deceit in the play. By staging the disloyalty of Hero, Don John strips her of her honour. In the time in which the play was set a woman's loss of honour would poison her name and brand her family also. After the supposed infidelity is disclosed at the wedding ceremony Leonato states, 'Hence from her, let her die.' - Shakespeare is showing us in the character of Leonato that the treachery of his daughter leads him to abandon her as it flourishes his honour also and by doing this Shakespeare is enforcing the traditional gender roles that were present in this time, that a mans loyalties lied with honour, camaraderie and a sense of superiority over women. However not only does he enforce them but he challenges them also as he shows in the characters of Beatrice and Benedick when Beatrice urges Benedick to duel Claudio in order to regain Hero's honour. By doing this it diminishes Benedick's superiority over women as he has turned his back on all these gender cliches in order to defend the honour of a woman who, as far as he knows, has been untrue to a man who in fact is his best friend and is now about to duel him - all for the woman he loves. Plus the woman he loves would not hold that title without the gulling aided by Claudio, so in essence Claudio's assistance in this deceit has helped emanate this duel.  Therefore ridiculing the idea of courtly love because in order for courtly love to be found in the couple of Benedick and Beatrice deception had to be used, like many animalistic metaphors used in the play, Beatrice will, 'tame' her heart for Benedick, as quite often the couple are compared to wild animals in a sense that they will never be tame enough for their hearts to feel love. It shows that the love between the characters needed work and wasn't as effortless as the ideal of courtly love. It can be argued that the idea of courtly love being problematic is seen in Claudio and Hero, however without the deception there wouldn't have been such problems. But you could suggest that it ridicules the idea of courtly love because surely a mans devotion would allow him to believe the woman he loved and not scorn her instead.