The importance of marriage as a theme in comedies of the eighteenth century cannot be exaggerated. Because of the established difference between the public and private spheres, and women’s supposed suitability to speak about more domestic concerns, many if not all plays written by women during the late eighteenth century feature and deal with relationships to some degree. Marriage is of course the most common feature, as comedies traditionally end with at least one wedding.
Given the heavy reliance on marriage as a driving force of the plot, and the romantic concerns of the characters, women’s comedies are frequently criticised for being sentimental or frivolous. Misty G. Anderson comments that, ‘At the level of content, marriage stories contrasted with the heroic themes of “great” literature, and at the level of popular function, their status as mere commercial entertainment opposed an abstract and masculine category of timeless art’(i). In other words, their writing about marriage put female playwrights into a literary category which automatically denoted their work as less valuable. Anderson rightly opposes this category with the ‘masculine’ ideal of art dealing with greater human concerns, gendering the domestic comedy as female, and, therefore, less important. However, while it is easy to ridicule the at times over-the-top value which is placed on marriage in these comedies, it is important to remember that for many women, being married really was one of their concerns in life. It was vital not only socially, but also financially, especially for middle-class women who were prevented from learning a trade, but would also not inherit enough money from their family to live comfortably on their own. Elizabeth Inchbald in particular often emphasises the financial aspects of marriage.
Her Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are (1797) (ii) centres around two interwoven plots. Firstly, Sir William Dorrillon returns from India to visit his daughter Maria, who has not seen him since she was a child. Maria Dorrillon is one of the ‘Maids’ of the title; she is ‘modern’, outgoing, witty, and has a group of suitors she flirts with but doesn’t take seriously. She is described as a ‘heedless woman of fashion’ (1/1) and Dorrillon is extremely dissatisfied with his daughter’s character.
The second plot concerns Lord and Lady Priory. Lady Priory is a ‘wife as they were’. She is under the strict control of her husband, who refuses to let her leave the house, talk to other women, and sometimes even locks her in her room (1/1).
One of the main themes of the play is the marriage market. Through Maria, Inchbald explores the economic realities facing a single woman during this period. Maria has a number of financial problems: her father is absent and cannot support her, she has borrowed money from friends in the past and therefore cannot ask them for more help, and she likes gambling without being very successful at it. Consequently, she ends up in debtor’s prison in the last act of the play, and is only released when Dorrillon offers to pay her debts and, in the process, is revealed to be her father. Hearing about Maria’s gambling debts, her friend Lady Mary suggests: ‘Why don’t you marry, and throw all your misfortunes upon your husband?’ Maria replies: ‘Why don’t you marry? For you have as many to throw’; to which Lady Mary retorts that it would make better financial sense for Maria to marry, as her suitor Sir George earns ten thousand pounds a year (1/1). Marriage is not a question of personal preference for them; they do not expect to choose a husband based on affection or matching personalities, but strictly on economic considerations. The scene in the debtor’s prison brings about a complete change of tone in the play. The revelation that Mandred (the pseudonym Sir Dorrillon uses) is her father causes Maria to undergo a significant transformation. Whereas before she is assertive, witty, and never afraid to contradict either Mandred or others, after that scene her lines are reduced to three sentences until the end of the play. With one of these sentences she hushes Lady Mary because Lord Priory is about to speak. The second sentence is a last attempt to regain her former independence: Sir George asks her (once again) if she will marry him. She replies, ‘No – I will instantly put an end to all your hopes’ (5/4). What sounds like quite a resolute refusal is instantly contradicted and reinterpreted by her father, who tells Sir George that Maria has consented to marry him after all. When George asks Maria ‘And what do you say to this?’ , she speaks the last words of the play: ‘Simply one sentence – A maid of the present day shall become a wife like those – of former times'(5/4).
Her financial situation, made very real by her stay in the debtor’s prison, convinces Maria of the necessity of marriage. Whereas previously she had been able to joke about marrying a wealthy suitor, it suddenly becomes her only option; she is subdued and literally loses her ability to see marriage as a joke, becoming almost speechless. Marrying Sir George is an exchange of her freedom and wit for financial security, which Inchbald makes abundantly clear by having her characters state exactly how much money George is worth earlier in the play. His wealth is what compensates her, and it is unlikely she would have chosen him if he could not offer her the security of money: ‘Maria Dorillon’s actions in the marriage market are therefore founded on the assumption of equal compensation. A woman only subordinates herself to a man if she is sure of adequate recompense in the institution of marriage.’ (iii)
The other representation of marriage in Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are is no less pessimistic. It is based on the idea that marriage was a much more serious and strict affair in earlier times, in which wives were completely under the control of their husband.
The embodiment of the wife of former times is of course Lady Priory – arguably the most interesting character in the play. At first she may strike the reader as rather dull, since she appears to confirm too much to the stereotype of the obedient wife. She hardly speaks, takes no part in the gambling, drinking, and socialising that occurs in the play, and spends most of her time in her room. Because such submissiveness is very uncharacteristic for a woman in a comedy play, it is reasonable to assume that the audience would have wanted her to break out of her silence and become more assertive; in this regard, however, Inchbald goes against comic convention: the dramatic rebellion against Lady Priory’s abusive husband, which the audience might expect, never comes. As Anderson remarks, ‘Comic logic all but demands that the jealous Lord Priory be taught a lesson when his oppressed wife bursts forth into a wider community, where she can escape into the arms of a worthier man. This plot, however, never emerges, in spite of a string of opportunities for Lady Priory’s revenge.’ (iv)
From a dramatic point of view, Lady Priory’s plotline is profoundly unsatisfying. Why did Inchbald decide to give her this story, and not one that would have been more accessible and more gratifying to her audience? The environment Lady Priory lives in simply does not allow for such an easy solution. The ‘worthier man’ never actually materialises; Bronzely, who develops an attachment to Lady Priory, and tries to run away with her, is a notorious rake and turns the potentially romantic act of eloping together into an attempted kidnapping and rape. He is also clearly attracted to her unavailability, which he sees as a challenge, rather than her actual person. She demands that he return her to her husband, which he eventually does. This demand may be interpreted as a rather unsatisfying return to the status quo, but ironically it is during this scene, when she has just been abducted by Bronzely, that Lady Priory changes. It is a subtle change; and it is not expressed in a grand gesture or great speech, but in a quiet, very domestic way. When Bronzely tries to frighten her by emphasising her vulnerability, ‘Lady Priory, you are in a lonely house of mine, where I am sole master’, the stage direction has her respond like this: ‘Lady Priory calmly takes out her knitting, draws a chair, and sits down to knit a pair of stockings’ (5/1). Her refusal to be scared, or even to actually react to him, suddenly puts her in a powerful position. She abruptly raises her status, which completely confuses Bronzely. She notices, and makes her position even stronger by pointing out his own vulnerability: ‘Ah! did I not tell you, you were afraid? ‘Tis you who are afraid of me’ (5/1). Bronzely has expected her to play a part, that of the damsel in distress who needs to be rescued; she refuses, and thus confuses both him and the narrative.
Her strategy of silent (or almost silent) resistance continues in the last act of the play. While she returns to Lord Priory and marriage, she does not say what he wants her to say anymore. When he asks her to declare that she hates Bronzely and loves her husband, she stays speechless (5/4). This does not, of course, amount to the ‘revenge’ the plot demands, but it is significant. Lady Priory recognises that she cannot leave her marriage without inviting consequences that would make her situation worse, and so she decides to stay and play the part of the silent wife her husband demands of her. But now she uses this very demand for silence against him by refusing to say what he wants to hear. The only substantial statement she makes about her marriage confirms that this adherence to traditional gender roles is indeed a choice: ‘to the best of my observation and understanding, your sex, in respect to us, are all tyrants. I was born to be the slave of some of you – I make the choice to obey my husband’ (4/2). She sees that her situation would not be improved by choosing another man, and she does not have the choice to choose no man at all, because that would leave her without any financial and social support. The only thing she really has control over, is her speech, and she uses the lack of it very effectively to confuse the men who are in control of her. In this light, perhaps Maria’s lapse into silence at the end of the play may be interpreted as a similar strategy: she has also recognised the necessity of conforming to the status quo of marriage and resorts to Lady Priory’s silent resistance.
The strategies used by both the characters and their playwright are remarkably similar. Inchbald makes her play conform to the traditional conventions of comedy in terms of form, but there is a hidden rebellious strain that undercuts the play’s surface plot of the necessity of marriage. This results in a play that is, formally and in terms of setting, a domestic comedy, but which is not actually very funny. The expected marriage ending reads more like a sad ending than a happy one, and the audience is left disappointed at some level with the actions of the characters. Comedy is shown as unable to alleviate the reality of women who have to choose marriage out of financial necessity, and Maria’s wit ultimately fails her. Anderson succinctly characterises Inchbald’s decision to make the women silent and serious at the end of her play as an example of her dark humour: ‘Perhaps the final joke of the play is that there is no joke that can moderate the power of husbands and fathers.’ (v)
Notes:
(i) Misty G. Anderson, Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 30.
(ii) Elizabeth Inchbald, Wives as they Were, and Maids as they Are (London: Robinson, 1797)
(iii) Daniel, O’Quinn, ‘”Scissors and Needles”: Inchbald’s Wives as They Were, Maids as They Are and the Governance of Sexual Exchange’, in Theatre Journal, No. 51 (Summer 1999), 105-125, p. 120.
(iv) Misty G. Anderson, Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p.196.
(v) Misty G. Anderson, Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (New York: Palgrave, 2002), p. 192.
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