I do perceive here a divided duty:
To you I am bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband,
And so much duty as my mother show’d
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.
– William Shakespeare
Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. Desdemona’s first words in the play introduce her as a supremely independent and articulate person. Her speech, before the Venetian Senate, father Brabantio and husband Othello, makes clear where her present loyalty lies. She speaks of her "divided" duty, voicing gratitude to her father for giving her a life and education while she was his daughter. But now she is married and her loyalty is to her husband, just as her mother’s duty was to her father. Desdemona shows great bravery here in the way she stands up to her father.