In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Rosalind runs away to the Forest of Arden with her friend Celia. In order to prevent discovery, Rosalind disguises herself as a boy and takes the name Ganymede. In the forest, she meets Orlando, who pines for Rosalind. He does not recognise Ganymede as her, and she offers to pretend to be Rosalind so that Orlando can practice his love poetry. Meanwhile, the shepherdess Phebe has fallen in love with Ganymede (who is really Rosalind).
In Shakespeare’s day, the female roles would have been played by boys.
So we have a boy playing a girl who disguises herself as a boy who then pretends to be a girl so another man can practice his wooing. And another boy playing a girl becomes besotted with the boy playing a girl disguised as a boy.
Now some Tory MP thinks that allowing gays to get married might result in Shakespeare, among others, being rewritten in order not to offend members of same-sex marriages? What an idiot.
It Doesn't Have To Be Right... 
March 25, 2012 at 9:31 am
Ganymede was a queer name at the time you might as well go on stage and say “Hello, I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy”.
Will Shakespeare’s plays be rewritten? of course we have been doing that since they were first performed. We are not going to stop now. So what? The originals will outlast them all.
As to the use of the terms husband and wife about f which he is so worried. They seem far to popular in the gay community as terms for ones partner.to die out.