Husbandship

Hence his eternal inadequacy, and the withering scorn that accompanies it in the works of Ovid and others: In a sense the cuckold is not simply a failed husband, but an emblem of failed husbandship in general, or, worse yet (and this, I think, is what happens at the hands of Renaissance authors), the cuckold intimates that husbandship can never really succeed on its own terms, as an institution created and upheld by masculine authority.

Thus, the price of a husbandship is higher when husbandships are scarce, and, similarly, the price of a husbandship is low when husbandships are abundant.