Love, Marriage, and Misogyny Theme Analysis

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.