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- Lady Jessica Is The Official Concubine To Duke Leto
- Concubines In Dune
- Why Didn’t Duke Leto Marry Lady Jessica?
- Lady Jessica And Duke Leto’s Parting Words In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One
Frank Herbert’s science-fiction masterpiece Dune wastes no time in letting readers know that Lady Jessica of the ancient Order of the Bene Gesserit is a concubine at the royal court of Duke Leto Atreides I. While it is true that Jessica doesn’t quite enjoy the status of the Duke’s wife, she is in command of many things at Castle Caladan. She was free to raise the ducal heir, Paul Atreides, in a manner she thought was best, and the Duke completely trusted her choices. She is ardently in love with the Duke, and only for him, does she willingly defy the Bene Gesserit’s command.
Lady Jessica is a creature of conformity, and she was placed in the Atreides household by the Bene Gesserit for a particular reason. The fact that she broke her Order’s commandment but continued to train Paul in the Bene Gesserit Way represents a dichotomy in her character. She is divided between her loyalties towards her Duke and the Bene Gesserit. Despite being the mother of the ducal heir, why is Lady Jessica Leto’s concubine in Dune?
Lady Jessica Is The Official Concubine To Duke Leto
Concubinage has a negative connotation in a general sense, but in Dune especially, Lady Jessica, by virtue of her position at the Atreides household, commands great respect. Leto holds her in high regard and the two seem to love each other very much. The Duke’s key staff, such as the Old Mentat Thufir Hawat, does not trust her and continues to view her with suspicion. Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam treats her like a “serving wench,” dismisses her in her own house, and orders her out as Paul is being tested under the Gom Jabbar.
Jessica was told to bear only daughters to the Atreides, yet she gave Leto a son, thanks to her enhanced biological abilities which let her determine the sex of her child at conception. Herbert’s Dune sheds light on Jessica’s relationship with the Duke, via a conversation between her and Gaius Helen Mohiam at Castle Caladan. When Jessica says giving birth to a son meant so much to the Duke, Gaius Helen Mohiam chastises her, saying she was selfish to take into consideration only the Duke’s desire for a son:
And desires don’t figure in this. An Atreides daughter could’ve been wed to a Harkonnen heir and sealed the breach. You’ve hopelessly complicated matters. We may lose both bloodlines now.
Jessica, torn between love and duty, stands by the decision she made years ago. Furthermore, she’d sensed the possibility that from her could come the Bene Gesserit Totality or the Male Bene Gesserit for which the Order carried out a multigenerational selective breeding program. Paul, born a generation too early, is indeed the Male Bene Gesserit, or the Kwisatz Haderach. In Herbert’s Dune, Gaius Helen Mohiam admits that she senses that possibility with Jessica’s boy.
Concubines In Dune
Herbert’s Dune also mentions that the Bene Gesserit breed Sisters of their stock or the acceptable stock to a close relative for their eugenics program. Simply put, the Order has been altering human gene pools for generations and their Sisters are forced to carry the burden. Jessica, a product of the breeding program herself, was raised to be bred to the Great House Atreides’ heir, Leto. The catch is that she wasn’t Leto’s wife but his official concubine. The reasons for Duke Leto not marrying Jessica were twofold: firstly, this arrangement left him open to contract marriage to a woman from another Great House, and secondly, Jessica’s sole purpose at the Atreides’ household was to serve the Bene Gesserit. She worked in the shadows, just as she was taught all her life.
Why Didn’t Duke Leto Marry Lady Jessica?
Jessica and Duke Leto’s arrangement evolved from that of convenience to love. A crucial conversation between Dr. Yueh and Lady Jessica in Herbert’s Dune makes it clear that the Duke loved his Lady:
Why haven’t you made the Duke marry you?
Then comes Jessica’s detailed explanation of why that didn’t happen. It was only for political reasons that the Duke remained unmarried. It signaled to the Great Houses that he was open to marriage, and had not bent to the will of a Bene Gesserit concubine. The fact that Jessica and the Duke stuck to their arrangement, gave an outward impression that the Duke determined his own future.
If I made him do…this, then it would not be his doing.
Like Jessica, the Duke is also a dichotomous Dune character. There’s a charming, tender, and thoughtful side to him, and there is a side that’s cold, merciless, inconsiderate, harsh, and selfish. Jessica adds that the latter side of his personality is shaped by the burden of who he is. The Duke is his father’s son, after all.
Lady Jessica And Duke Leto’s Parting Words In Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One
In Villeneuve’s Dune, Jessica and the Duke get a chance to discuss their arrangement thoroughly before the Harkonnen-Sardaukar attack. Though she begins the conversation wanting to talk about Paul, the Duke would much rather talk about his son’s meeting with the Reverend Mother:
Ever since you brought him before your Reverend Mother, he hasn’t been the same. He is distracted.
Knowing that they are in peril, the Duke asks Jessica to protect their son in the future, even if it means compromising her position as a Bene Gesserit.
I am not asking his mother, I am asking the Bene Gesserit.
Leto and Jessica spend some time together, at the end of which Leto admits that he walked on to Arrakis thinking he had more time at his disposal. He wanted to rule by winning the Fremen as allies and using their power to keep the enemies at bay, but alas, he hardly had the time to settle down. The last thing Duke Leto Atreides tells his concubine in Dune: Part One is that he should have married her.
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