The only folly of man is women

"MEN’S SUBJECTION TO ROMANTIC LOVE

In Love’s Labor’s Lost. men’s power and autonomy wither as the men fall prey to romantic love. At the beginning of the play, the men are in full command. The king and his courtiers, all noble, rich, intelligent, and powerful, speak grandly about their own fame and grace, which they confidently anticipate. By the end of the play, they have broken their most cherished oaths, acted like idiots, dressed up in disguises that fool nobody, and used ail of their intelligence and passion in the service of women who leave them. As great as the noblemen’s power is, the power of romantic love is greater.

At the outset, the king and his friends view women as objects they can do without—a luxury that is difficult to give up, but a dispensable luxury. They assume their lives will be improved without women, reinforcing the idea, inherited from ancient Greece, that women and the passions they arouse keep men from wisdom and intellectual achievement. As Don Armado says of Jaguenetta, women are “the weaker vessel” (1.1.256). But by the end of the play, women have subdued men. The men have abandoned their former oaths and beg their departing lovers to stay with them longer. The tables have turned, and the women are now the ones in the powerful position of withholding love, as the men were in the first act. The princess’s hunt symbolizes the rising power of women. The hunt, a typically masculine activity, and the image of a woman wielding a weapon, suggest that the males are now the prey. Indeed, the princess bags a male deer."

--- Sparknotes 101: Shakespeare