William Wycherley’s The Country Wife is one of those Restoration comedies that you either hate or love. I fall in the latter category, which may reflect more on my sense of humor than on my strict adherence to expressions of so-called virtue. I acknowledge that the play presents humans as fairly vicious animals, more interested in acquiring money and power and in the gratification of their sexual desires than in almost anything else—except, perhaps, for due attention to the social standing that, in the play and in the world that it depicts, is called “honour.” But then that’s the job of a satirist, to strip away the masks that hide the reality of existence. In Hamlet’s more expansive way of putting it, the task of art is “to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” Satire’s mirror always reflects scorn.
I also acknowledge that Restoration comedy is often a stew of misogyny. There are obvious exceptions, of course, as in the plays of Aphra Behn where women’s agency is foregrounded. I think, however, that the best Restoration comedies are not so much misogynistic as they are misanthropic.
The Country Wife is clearly scornful, gently so perhaps, of ignorant women such as Margery Pinchwife, the “country wife” of the title. Unlike the subtler, more penetrating comedies of Shakespeare, among others, the play suggests but does not analyze the reasons for Margery’s ignorance. The satire does not directly address, but rather simply presents the gendered inequities of the seventeenth century. More ruthlessly, the play focuses squarely on sexual viciousness. The coterie of sexually starved women—Lady Fidget and Mrs. Dainty Fidget, Mrs. Squeamish—who people the play will do anything they can to get a good fuck so long as it doesn’t entail loss of “honour.”
That is why they so admire Mr. Horner. They abhor Horner when they think he has become entirely impotent, but they adore him when they discover that the report of his impotence is his ruse to convince husbands to leave their wives in his company. As Lady Fidget says when Horner reveals the truth to her,
But, poor Gentleman, cou'd you be so generous? so truly a Man of honour, as for the sakes of us Women of honour, to cause your self to be reported no Man? No Man! and to suffer your self the greatest shame that cou'd fall upon a Man, that none might fall upon us Women by your conversation; but indeed, Sir, as perfectly, perfectly, the same Man as before your going into France, Sir; as perfectly, perfectly, Sir?
In France the cure for the clap—loads and loads of mercury—would have made Horner “no Man” indeed, and the good Lady Fidget is in awe that he provulgates that falsehood so that he can enjoy women’s “conversation” without destroying the ladies’ “honour.”
But Wycherly does not limit the satire to women. The men are in for as much scorn as they are. The women have good cause to be dissatisfied with the bargains they made in marrying their mates.
There is Mr. Pinchwife, who marries ignorant little Margery according to his principle, that “he's a Fool that marrys, but he's a greater that does not marry a Fool; what is wit in a Wife good for, but to make a Man a Cuckold?” Under that principle lies the truth, which Horner worms out of him when he asks why, if he is so worried about becoming a cuckold, he doesn’t simply keep a mistress. “A Pox on't, the Jades wou'd jilt me, I cou'd never keep a Whore to my self.” Horner draws the proper conclusion, that “you only marry'd to keep a Whore to your self.” Why the whores would jilt him is left unexamined, but the implication is that when it comes to sexual performance he is at least a bit insufficient.
Pinchwife’s sexual self-doubt acts as the catalyst for much of the comedic plot of the play. He does not believe in Horner’s self-proclaimed impotence, and so that part of the plot hangs on Horner’s maneuvers to deceive the husband, Pinchwife, as he tries to get the wife, Margery, in bed—or at least in compromising positions. In short, Mr. Pinchwife is so thoroughly sexually inferior that he is the major image of scorn in the play.
And there is Sir Jasper Fidget, a city knight, as they said back then, a newly rich urban merchant of some sort whose goal in life is to keep making as much money as he can. Eager to get business, he is happily willing to believe in Horner’s impotence so he can leave his wife and daughter alone with Horner while he hies off to Whitehall to ingratiate himself with king and courtiers and so manage his financial affairs. Another locus for scorn, then, is the venality of the men.
And there is Sparkish. In his case, the mirror of satire presents two images of scorn. Venality is one element of the scorn. Sparkish is meant to marry Alithea, the wonderfully heroic hero of the play, not because he loves her but rather because he will be getting five thousand pounds in dowry from Pinchwife, Alithea’s brother, to do so. One aspect of Alithea’s heroism is that, although she is not ignorant and naïve as Margery is, nonetheless she trusts in the good will of others. When Mr. Harcourt, the male “hero” of a play where there are no male heroes, tries to woo Alithea away from Sparkish, the action at the heart of the romantic plot of the play, she rejects him because, she says, Sparkish “loves me, or he wou'd not marry me.” To be fair to Sparkish, he seems to have equal faith in Alithea’s truth and virtue. Alithea thinks so, at any rate, and asserts that “'tis Sparkish's confidence in my truth, that obliges me to be so faithful to him.”
As it turns out, it’s not so much Sparkish’s confidence as it is his foolishness that makes him so accommodating to Alithea. Indeed, the other element of scorn in the image of Sparkish is his profound folly. As Dorilant, another man about town, says, “to pass for a wit in Town, [Sparkish] shewes himself a fool every night to us.” A wit-wannabe, Sparkish demonstrates how easily men descend into idiocy. Sparkish is not ignorant, as is Margery, but he is so full of himself as the icon of the latest fashion and the purveyor of the latest gossip, that he is easily, and repeatedly, mocked, scorned, fleeced. Ultimately, when Harcourt’s machinations convince Sparkish that Alithea has betrayed him, Sparkish shows that he can be jealous: “Cou'd you find out no easie Country Fool to abuse?” he asks Alithea, “none but me, a Gentleman of wit and pleasure about the Town”?
At the heart of Sparkish’s relation to Alithea is the untenable position that Alithea finds herself in. Yes, Sparkish seems to trust Alithea, who in truth is a virtuous young woman. But on the other hand, Sparkish also takes as gospel truth the default general notion about women that animates the sexual games of the play. As he says to Pinchwife, “Cuckolding like the small Pox 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'l have it sooner or later by the world.” In short, all women are or will be harlots. Harcourt paints Alithea as just another woman, and therefore Sparkish comes to see her as cuckold-maker in waiting. Recognizing that Sparkish is no different from the run of the mill “gentleman” who can never trust a wife, then, Alithea is happy to change her mind. Pinchwife is as happy to have Alithea marry Harcourt as Sparkish—indeed, Harcourt is socially and financially a better catch than is Sparkish. And so, says Alithea, “I find my Brother would break off the match [with Sparkish], and I can consent to't, since I see this Gentleman can be made jealous.”
The sexual malaise of the society that the play reflects is nowhere clearer or sharper than it is in Horer, a “true” wit. Horny as his name indicates, he deploys his wit to fulfill all his sexual desires. Witness the wonderfully funny scene where Sir Jasper Fidget warns his wife, who has locked herself into Horner’s chamber, that Horner is about to penetrate Lady Fidget “the back way.” Ostensibly the good lady is selecting the best “china” that Horner owns. But behind the closed door, as the lady says, “Let him come, and welcome, which way he will.” There is no doubt that Horner comes indeed, so that when eventually he and Lady Fidget exit his chamber, she holds up “the pretti'st piece of China” that she has taken from him. Seeing the prize, Mrs. Squeamish says, “Oh Lord I'le have some China too, good Mr. Horner, don't think to give other people China, and me none, come in with me too.” The depleted Horner demurs, however: “Upon my honour I have none left now.”
The question the character of Horner raises is whether the expenditure of energy in the pursuit of a fuck is worth the effort. Horner himself defines the kind of women that his claim of impotence is designed to prey on: “Why, these are pretenders to honour, as criticks to wit, only by censuring others.” Women like the Fidgets or the Squeamishes are female versions of men like Sparkish and Pinchwife. All of them, men as much as women, are simply proper objects of satirical scorn. If that is the case, then Horner is a much debased as is Lady Fidget.
Alithea is the counter to so much debauchery. Until Sparkish proves himself to be just another accuser of women, she is steadfast in her loyalty to him. It’s obvious that Harcourt attracts her. He is, after all, exactly what Pinchwife understands him to be: “His [Harcourt’s] estate is equal to Sparkish's, and his extraction as much better than his, as his parts are.” Alithea does not even think of Pinchwife’s first consideration, Harcourt’s estate. But she does recognize that Harcourt is infinitely superior to Sparkish in wit and grace.
Although it is not absolutely clear in the play, it seems as well that Harcourt is not so thoroughly misogynistic as are the other male characters. He certainly admires Alithea, not just for her beauty but also for her wit and for her virtue. At the first meeting of Alithea and Harcourt affirms the truth that the play presents, that “Marriage is rather a sign of interest, then love; and he that marries a fortune, covets a Mistress, not loves her.”
At no point in the play does Harcourt expressly accept Alithea’s watchword, that “Love proceeds from esteem.” But his behavior from the first meeting limns out the fact that he does indeed esteem Alithea.
The climax of the comic plot involves Margery putting on Alithea’s clothes and, in that disguise, going off to an assignation with Horner. In the mish mash of identities that ensues, Alithea’s “honour” comes under suspicion. Alithea is distraught because, newly engaged to Harcourt, she assumes that he will reject her much as Sparkish has: “O unfortunate Woman! a combination against my Honour, which most concerns me now, because you share in my disgrace, Sir, and it is your censure which I must now suffer, that troubles me, not theirs.” Alithea’s concern for Harcourt’s reputation, and her fear that he will no longer esteem her, are evident. But Harcourt is a man of a different stripe. “Madam, then have no trouble,” he replies, “you shall now see 'tis possible for me to love too, without being jealous, I will not only believe your innocence my self, but make all the world believe it.”
Harcourt does not use “esteem,” the word that underlies Alithea’s ideal grounds for the flourishing of love. But it’s clear enough that Harcourt so esteems Alithea that he cannot even begin to believe that she has in fact lost her “honour.” When the two marry it will, without a doubt, be a matter of mutual esteem that underlies the union.
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