Shakespeare's Sonnet 10 treats refusing to have children as a kind of self-hatred
In Sonnet 10, Shakespeare stops flattering and starts scolding. The young man he addresses is adored by many yet loves no one, and the poet frames that coldness as a plot against himself: a lovely house left to crumble when it ought to be repaired. The remedy offered is blunt, and for once it is personal.
The poem opens with an accusation, "For shame!", and then builds its case like a prosecutor. The friend may well be loved by many, the speaker concedes, but it is obvious that he returns none of that affection. Worse, his refusal is described as hatred turned inward, so fierce that he will conspire against his own interests. Shakespeare gives this self-harm a concrete picture: a handsome roof, most naturally read as the family line or the body that houses the young man's beauty, which he seems bent on ruining rather than mending.
The turn arrives at the ninth line. The speaker asks the friend to change his thinking so that the speaker can revise his own opinion of him, then puts a sharp question: should hate enjoy a finer lodging than gentle love? The appeal is to consistency. The young man's outward presence is gracious and kind, so his conduct ought to match it, or at the very least he should show some kindness to himself.
The couplet adds a new note. Rather than arguing only from the friend's self-interest, the speaker asks him to make another self "for love of me". Beauty would then survive either in the child or in the young man himself. That small personal plea moves the sonnet from lecture towards intimacy and hints at how much the speaker has invested in the person he is chiding.
A biographical irony sits underneath. Shakespeare, who left 154 sonnets alongside some 39 plays, had not delayed fatherhood himself. At 18 he married Anne Hathaway, then 26, after a licence was issued on 27 November 1582, and their daughter Susanna was baptised in May 1583. Twins, Hamnet and Judith, followed in early 1585; Hamnet died at the age of 11 and was buried in August 1596.
Source: Sonnet 10: For shame! Deny that thou bear'st love to any
