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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In six pages this paper examines how seventeenth-century playwright conveyed the theme of marriage in his 1675 Restoration comedy, The Country Wife. There are no additional sources listed in the bibliography.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGwychwife.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
Puritan attitudes that had prohibited them. Many of these plays featured themes of love and marriage that were expressed in overtly sexual ways that were scandalous at the time
and would even be considered raunchy by contemporary standards. William Wycherley (1640-1715) was one of the most successful of the Restoration playwrights. His satirical comedies were heavily laden
with sexual innuendoes, irony, and metaphor. Wycherleys highly popular 1675 comedy entitled The Country Wife featured the playwrights unconventional views of marriage in the relationships between the appropriately named
Sir Jasper and Lady Fidget, Pinchwife and his country wife Margery, and Margerys sister Alethea and her suitors Master Sparkish and Ned Harcourt. Each of these vignettes seemed to
reinforce Wycherleys dim view of the seventeenth-century marital state, expressed by the rakish protagonist Harry Horner in Act I: "A marriage vow is like a penitent gamesters oath and
entering into bonds and penalties to stint himself to such a particular small sum at play for the future, which makes him but the more eager and, not being able
to hold out, loses his money again and his forfeit to boot" (204). The perspectives contained within The Country Wife are perhaps best understood within the context of how
many English couples regarded marriage during this time. Marriages were not love matches, but rather arrangements of convenience based upon financial or social needs. Marriage, for example, could
consolidate the fortunes of two aristocratic families that would mean greater wealth for husband and wife. A woman could either improve or solidify her social status by marrying a
man of title and privilege. This seems to be exactly why Lady Fidget entered into the bonds of matrimony with Sir Jasper. This couple, while outwardly cordial with
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