Marriage is not depicted as a symbol of love in The Country Wife and, instead, is associated with qualities such as hatred, greed, and misogyny. In the Restoration period, marriages were commonly viewed as transactions, especially among wealthy class people, and were often arranged for material and social reasons rather than because the couple were in love. Wycherly is critical of this model for marriage and portrays married life as an unnatural, unpleasant state that puts women in danger of mistreatment by their husbands.
Marriage is treated as a joke throughout much of the play. This suggests that marriage as an institution is absurd because it forces people to act against their natural inclinations. Although marriage is, socially, a symbol of love, the married couples in the play do not like or respect one another. Sir Jasper Fidget is constantly trying to get rid of Lady Fidget so that he can spend more time on his favorite pastime, business, while Lady Fidget and the other married ladies constantly try to avoid and escape their husbands to carry on love affairs with “gallants” like Horner. The idea that marriage is unnatural is further reinforced by the suggestion that forbidden love is more exciting and pleasurable than socially sanctioned or marital love. This is expressed by Lady Fidget, who objects to sleeping with honorable men because “the pleasure will be the less,” and also by Margery, who catches “the town sickness” of pining after a man, Horner, who is not her husband. Infidelity is so common in the play that it suggests that fidelity to one partner is unnatural and that it is made even more impossible when one is forced to spend all one’s time with a partner, as in a marriage. People forced into this situation will end up bored with or suspicious of each other and this will end the love between them. It is implied that infidelity, rather than fidelity, is the natural result of marriage.
Marriage is not only portrayed as a thing that destroys love, but also as something which is often undertaken for cynical or mercenary reasons. Pinchwife has married Margery because he believes that she is innocent and, therefore, will be faithful to him. It is implied that he has done this because he is getting old and can no longer “keep a whore to himself.” This suggests that Pinchwife wishes to replace the town women, whom he bribed to spend time with him, with a woman who, as his wife, will be forced to spend time with and be faithful to him. He does not really care about Margery—he only cares about his own gratification and pride. Similarly, Sparkish is only marrying Alithea for her money. He is a “cracked title,” which means he is broke, and he clearly does not really love her but, like Pinchwife, is interested in how she makes him look to others. He thoughtlessly shows her off to Harcourt and does not care that his behavior is embarrassing for Alithea. This leads to Harcourt’s seduction of Alithea and suggests that marriage, rather than a vehicle for love, is actually an obstacle to love.
Both men and women stand to lose by marriage in the play, yet women have more to lose because marriage may put them in physical danger from their husbands. The husbands in the play are concerned about losing their reputations or their money through marriage. Pinchwife is afraid of being given the reputation of a “cuckold” and Horner teases him and suggests that wives spend all their husbands’ money. However, men have significantly more freedom in marriage than women do. Lady Fidget is bored because she is discarded by Sir Jasper, who only cares about his work. She is not allowed to do as she likes, however, but is spied on and controlled by Sir Jasper, who feels that women must be kept occupied to keep them out of trouble. This, ironically, is why he leaves his wife and sister with Horner. This attitude reflects the misogynistic belief that women are inherently more corrupt and deceitful than men, which was common in this period.
This attitude is also displayed by Pinchwife, who keeps Margery locked up and who believes that women should be kept “ignorant” and be treated like “pets.” Margery describes her marriage to Pinchwife as like life in a “cage” and his abuse of her is emphasized when, while he forces her to write a letter to Horner, he threatens to “carve whore” into her face with his knife if she will not obey him. This gives the viewer an insight into the real physical danger that wives could be placed in by jealous husbands who believe that their wives are their possessions and their property. Although Margery does prove unfaithful to Pinchwife, in her attempts to seduce Horner, the play makes it clear that she is driven to this by Pinchwife himself because he is so unkind to her and because of his misogynistic attitudes to women, which are supported and encouraged by the conventions of Restoration marriage. This suggests that when marriage is undertaken for mercenary or financial reasons it does not improve people’s lives or encourage loving relationships but, instead, breeds resentment, places restrictions of people’s pleasure and quality of life and, in extreme cases, places women in danger because of the lack of rights afforded to them in Restoration society.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Love, Marriage, and Misogyny ThemeTracker
Love, Marriage, and Misogyny Quotes in The Country Wife
Why, ’tis as hard to find an old whoremaster without jealousy and the gout, as a young one without fear or the pox.
As gout in age from pox in youth proceeds,
So wenching past, then jealousy succeeds:
The worst disease that love and wenching breeds.
Pinchwife: Ay, my dear, you must love me only, and not be like the naughty town-women, who only hate their husbands and love every man else; love plays, visits, fine coaches, fine clothes, fiddles, balls, treats, and so lead a wicked town-life.
Margery Pinchwife: Nay, if to enjoy all these things be a town-life, London is not so bad a place, dear.
Pinchwife: How! If you love me, you must hate London.
Alithea: The fool has forbid me discovering to her the pleasures of the town, and he is now setting her agog upon them himself.
Harcourt: Truly, madam, I never was an enemy to marriage till now, because marriage was never an enemy to me before.
Alithea: But why, sir, is marriage an enemy to you now? Because it robs you of your friend here? For you look upon a friend married as one gone into a monastery, that is dead to the world.
Mrs. Squeamish: ’Tis true, nobody takes notice of a private man, and therefore with him ’tis more secret, and the crime’s the less when ’tis not known.
Lady Fidget: You say true; i’faith, I think you are in the right on’t. ’Tis not an injury to a husband till it be an injury to our honors; so that a woman of honor loses no honor with a private person; and to say truth.
Would it not make anyone melancholy, to see you go every day fluttering about abroad, whilst I must stay at home like a poor, lonely, sullen bird in a cage?
Because I do hate 'em and would hate ’em yet more. I’ll frequent ’em. You may see by marriage, nothing makes a man hate a woman more than her constant conversation. In short, I converse with ’em, as you do with rich fools, to laugh at ’em and use ’em ill.
Horner: No, a foolish rival and a jealous husband assist their rival's designs; for they are sure to make their women hate them, which is the first step to their love for another man.
Harcourt: But I cannot come near his mistress but in his company.
Horner: Still the better for you, for fools are most easily cheated when they themselves are accessories; and he is to be bubbled of his mistress, as of his money, the common mistress, by keeping him company.
Harcourt: I see all women are like these of the Exchange, who, to enhance the price of their commodities, report to their fond customers offers which were never made ’em.
Horner: Ay women are as apt to tell before the intrigue as men after it, and so show themselves the vainer sex.
So we are hard put to’t, when we make our rival our procurer; but neither she nor her brother would let me come near her now. When all’s done, a rival is the best cloak to steal to a mistress under, without suspicion; and when we have once got to her as we desire, we throw him off like other cloaks.
Margery Pinchwife: I don't know where to put this here, dear bud. You shall eat it. Nay, you shall have part of the fine gentleman’s good things, or treat, as you call it, when we come home.
Pinchwife: Indeed, I deserve it, since I furnished the best part of it. (Strikes away the orange.)
The gallant treats, presents, and gives the ball; But ’tis the absent cuckold, pays for all.
The woman that marries to love better will be as much mistaken as the wencher that marries to live better. No. madam, marrying to increase love is like gaming to become rich; alas, you only lose what little stock you had before … But what a devil is this honor? ’Tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim, or falling sickness, that always hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women what’s dearer to ’em, their love, the life of life.
I say, loss of her honor, her quiet, nay, her life sometimes; and what’s as bad almost, the loss of this town; that is, she is sent into the country, which is the last ill usage of a husband to a wife, I think.
Then of necessity, madam, you think a man must carry his wife into the country, if he be wise. The country is as terrible, I find, to our young English ladies as a monastery to those abroad; and on my virginity, I think they would rather marry a London jailer than a high sheriff of a county, since neither can stir from his employment. Formerly women of wit married fools for a great estate, a fine seat, or the like; but now ’tis for a pretty seat only in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, St James's Fields, or the Pall Mall.
So, ’tis plain she loves him, yet she has not love enough to make her conceal it from me. But the sight of him will increase her aversion for me, and love for him, and that love instruct her how to deceive me and satisfy him, all idiot that she is. Love! ’Twas he gave women first their craft, their art of deluding. Out of nature’s hands they came plain, open, silly, and fit for slaves, as she and heaven intended ’em, but damned love –well – I must strangle that little monster whilst I can deal with him.
If you talk a word more of your honor, you’ll make me incapable to wrong it. To talk of honor in the mysteries of love is like talking of heaven or the deity in an operation of witchcraft, just when you are employing the devil; it makes the charm impotent … I tell you, madam, the word ‘money’ in a mistress’s mouth, at such a nick of time, is not a more disheartening sound to a younger brother than that of ‘honor’ to an eager lover like myself.
But Harry, what, have I a rival in my wife already? But with all my heart, lord he may be of use to me hereafter! For though my hunger is now my sauce, and I can fall on heartily without, but the time will come when a rival will be as good sauce for a married man to a wife as an orange to veal.
Well, 'tis e'en so, I have got the London disease they call love; I am sick of my husband, and for my gallant. I have heard this distemper called a fever, but methinks ’tis liker an ague, for when I think of my husband, I tremble and am in a cold sweat, and have inclinations to vomit, but when I think of my gallant, dear Mr. Horner, my hot fit comes and I am all in a fever, indeed, and as in other fevers my own chamber is tedious to me, and I would fain be removed to his, and then methinks I should be well.
Sparkish: Lord, how shy you are of your wife! But let me tell you, brother, we men of wit have amongst us a saying that cuckolding, like the smallpox, comes with a fear, and you may keep your wife as much as you will out of danger of infection, but if her constitution incline her to't, she'll have it sooner or later, by the world, say they.
Pinchwife: What a thing is a cuckold, that every fool can make him ridiculous! – Well sir – but let me advise you, now you are come to be concerned, because you suspect the danger, not to neglect the means to prevent it, especially when the greatest share of the malady will light upon your own head, for
Hows’e’er the kind wife’s belly comes to swell
The husband breeds for her, and first is ill.
Why should our damned tyrants oblige us to live
On the pittance of pleasure which they only give?
We must not rejoice
With wine and with noise.
In vain we must wake in a dull bed alone.
Whilst to our warm rival, the bottle, they’re gone.
Then lay aside charms
And take up these arms.
Tis wine only gives ’em their courage and wit,
Because we live sober, to men we submit.
