Recommended Reading
People like to blame Lady Macbeth for her husband's downfall ... but consider the evidence more closely.
Macbeth is a warrior, an experienced killer. The first thing we learn about him is that he fought against the rebel, Macdonwald, and "he unseam'd him from the nave to the chops,/ And fix'd his head upon our battlements", i.e. he cut him in half from the belly button (nave) to the jaw (chops) and stuck his head on a castle wall. He knows what it is to kill a man.
Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, has lived the life of a rich man's wife: at home, untroubled, dreaming of fame and fortune but never having to do any dirty work. When it comes to killing Duncan, she cannot do it herself because the old man "resembled / My father as he slept".
Macbeth knows what it will cost him emotionally and politically to do the murder. He knows that he will be troubled with guilt, that everyone else will know he's done it and hate him for doing it ... and yet he does it anyway! Of course he might not have done it without Lady Macbeth, who questions his manhood, tells him she won't love him unless he does it - all the tricks in the book to make a man do something.
If he was stronger though he would tell her the truth. It is morally wrong to kill him and it will turn out badly for both of them!
