ADULTEROUS WIVES, OBSTREPEROUS WIDOWS, DISDAINFUL DAUGHTERS AND COURTESANS:

DISREPUTABLE WOMEN IN APHRA BERN'S COMEDIES

by

Adris E. Hoyos

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Master of Arts

Florida Atlantic University

Boca Raton, Florida

August 1994 ADULTEROUS WIVES, OBSTREPEROUS WIOC:WS, DISDAINFUL DAUGHTERS AND COURTESANS:

DISREPUTABLE WOMEN IN APHRA BEHN'S COMEDIES

by

Adris E. Hoyos

This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate's thesis advisor, Dr. David Anderson, Department of English and Comparative Literature and has been approved by members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Schmidt College of Arts and Humanities and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.

SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:

Chairperson, Thesis Advisor ' &,e~7v41~· (

I

Chairperson, Department of English and Comparative Literature

Arts and Humanities

ii ABSTRAcr

Author: Adris E. Hoyos

Title: Adulterous vhves, Obstreperous Widows, Disdainful

Daughters and Courtesans: Disreputable Women

in Aphra Behn' s Comedies

Institution: Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. David Anderson

Degree: Master of Arts

Year: 1994

In Aphra Behn's comedies, disreputable women rebel against patriarchal authority by refusing to conform to conventional images of femininity.

Because they believe in self-determination, they often come into conflict with the men who attempt to impose their will on them. They also come into conflict with the characters in the play who idealize love, because they give rrore importance to practical matters. Although they are criticized within the plays, Behn portrays them as sympathetic because they often help other characters by objecting to forced marriage. They are Behn's most aggressive and assertive female characters, and thus use patriarchy to their own advantage, often to obtain wealth. Disreputable female characters allow Behn to discuss issues of rroney, class, and sex.

iii TABLE OF CONI'ENTS

Abstract . • • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • • • . • • • . . • • • . iii

Disreputable Women in Aphra Behn's Comedies ••••..•••••• 1

Adulterous Wives • • • • • • • . • • • . • . • • • . • . • . • • • 12

Obstreperous WidOVJs . . • . • . • • • . • • • . • • • • • • • • • 21

Disdainful Daughters . . • . • • • . • • • • • . • • • . . • • • . 28

Courtesans and Kept Women . • • • • • . • . • • • • • • • . • • • 37

Conclusion . • • . . • • . • • . • • • • • • • . • . • • • • • . . 48

Works Cited . • • . . • . • • . • • . . • • • . • • . • • • • . . . 51

iv Disreputable Women in Aphra Behn's Comedies

Aphra Behn's comedies present disreputable women as intelligent, independent individuals who rebel against patriarchal authority. The unfaithful wife, the eccentric widow, the disdainful daughter, and the prostitute all shun women's "conventional attributes: domesticity, softness, chastity, modesty, and fidelity" (Munns 205). As a result, they are criticized in the plays both by the women who do fulfill these expectations and the men who expect them to fulfill them. However, they often redeem themselves in the eyes of the audience and the other characters in the play when they oppose the powerful male figures in the play. But they are not against forced marriages because such marriages are mercenary, or because they believe in the importance of love, but because they believe in self-dE:tennination. "Disreputable" women do not want to overthrow patriarchy; they want to use it to their own advantage to obtain money and raise their standard of living. They are socially ambitious because of their pride. Wealth allows women to sell themselves to a person they choose, and thus to control their sexuality. By objecting to forced marriages, not only do Behn's disreputable women refuse to allow men to use them as exchange, they help prevent other women from becoming objects of exchange.

While critics are correct in their claim that some of Behn's female characters are oppressed by patriarchy, her disreputable females do not allow men to limit their actions or to define who they are. Many of these, especially minor characters, have received little attention.

1 They are the most independent and assertive female characters in Behn's comedies. The disreputable female characters show how women were able to use the patriarchal system to their own advantage and to take control of their future, particularly by controlling marriage arrangements.

While several critics are correct in asserting that Behn does not strictly adhere to comic convention, but instead uses the form to teach her ideas, they fail to see Behn' s mockery of ranantic love in her comedies. Behn' s disreputable female characters suggest that Behn does not idealize love, but instead sees it as a way in which women are enslaved to men. Behn subversively attacks the idea of romantic love by showing that women who do not aspire to this ideal achieve independence from men, even though by doing so they are criticized by society. Thus, while forced marriage is a prominent theme in many of Behn's plays, the focus is usually one of women wrestling control from men, rather than an idealization of romantic love.

The definition of patriarchy as "any social environment that is perceived as hostile to independent activities of women in spheres other than traditional domestic, nurturing roles" cannot be applied to the seventeenth century because women were becoming increasingly independent

(Ezell 3). In The Patriarch's Wife, Margaret Ezell laments that much recent criticism on seventeenth-century English women assumes that women were oppressed by the patriarchy. She argues, rather, that patriarchy was only able to remain in place by not imposing tight control over women. She is correct in disagreeing with critics who claim that women's oppression by the patriarchy left women powerless. Yet Ezell goes too far when she makes an argument for domestic matriarchy. Aphra Behn's plays make apparent that women were able to empower themselves but only

2 by struggling with men. Ezell disagrees with modern scholars who use literary texts as evidence of women's oppression; instead, she looks at conduct manuals, biographies, and other types of writing to show that many women were able to escape the limitations of the patriarchal system. Although Ezell argues that literary texts cannot be used as evidence of women's oppression, Behn's portrayal of relationships between men and women must have been realistic enough for the audience of the time to have believed them. Ezell also claims that there was little open rebellion because patriarchy allowed women power over their household.

Behn's plays, however, suggest that the reason there was little open rebellion against patriarchy was that many women were able to use subversive means to rebel or to acquire wealth or property. Patriarchy did not impose tight control over women, but patriarchy did attempt to define the way women should behave. Behn's plays suggest that patriarchal structures did attempt to oppress women who did not conform to traditional images of femininity. They also show that many women met with criticism when they did not conform to passive roles.

Ezell, however, is correct in asserting that too much writing about the seventeenth century focuses on women's exploitation by the patriarchy; this is particularly true of criticism about Behn. Several critics claim that women in Behn's plays are exploited by capitalism, because they are bought and sold in the marriage market or exploited by having to sell their bodies. Both Munns and Lussier see men controlling the exchange of women. Munns claims that in this society "women were the objects of masculine exchange and signs of male power" (200). Similarly,

Lussier describes the exchange of women in Behn's plays as if it met with no resistance. "Women are objects of exchange, coins stamped with

3 the imprint of men" (380). Lussier argues that in Behn's plays both men and women sell themselves like commodities for money and power, although men are ultimately in control of the exchanges. vfuen Lussier says that prostitution is as degrading as rnarriage because women are being used by men, he does not consider the women who refuse to allow men power over them. Instead of being passive "objects," disreputable women manipulate economic exchanges.

Brown and Prescott also claim that Behn's female characters are passive "objects." Both insist that Behn is sympathetic towards disreputable women because they have to suffer under society's "reduction of human relationships to economic exchanges," whereby a woman's actions are "justified in relation to the general .materialism of her whole depicted world" (Brown 61-62). Brovvn assumes that romantic values are better than economic ones:

Our evaluations of and expectations for Behn's independent women

are directed by our recognition of the pressures of a corrupt,

materialistic world upon the relatively helpless individual; society

operates in such a way that if this noble woman (Angellica) fails

to conform and attempts to substitute romantic for economic values,

she will be broken. (60-61)

Prescott similarly believes Behn presents the prostitute and the unchaste woman as victims, not transgressors. Behn condemns "society . for the devastating economic circumstances which produce such women" (507A).

But Behn does not depict the horrible social conditions of prostitutes; instead, she portrays courtesans and kept women who are able to remain in a higher social class as long as they avoid love. Courtesans use the economic order to their own advantage. But while disreputable females

4 are criticized by other characters in the play for pursuing financial interests above love, it is apparent that Behn is not critical of them, because the plays do not idealize love.

Several critics assume that women's roles in the seventeenth century were lirnited by patriarchal structures. Kavenick and Munns see Behn' s aggressive females as taking on stereotypically male traits, and Kavenik claims Behn was able to expand women's roles by putting them in breeches

(179). Jessica Munns claims that Behn's male side is apparent when she "gives her females energies, powers, and possibilities that were only allowed to men," and yet she writes like a woman "in presenting images of women released from the constraints of a male-inscribed femininity" ( 201). Women's only power was to "elevate womanhood in terms of its conventional attributes: domesticity, softness, chastity, modesty and fidelity" (Munns 205). What Munns describes as women's power is a definition of women which many men would like to impose on them, but Behn's plays show women resisting this definition.

David Sullivan claims the word "will" was synonyrrous with sexual will and women were expected to express neither. Sullivan thus calls women's inability to express their will an issue of modesty: "M::>desty was associated not only with silence, but also with confinement and suppression of the will" (340). Women were forced to accept the will imposed on them by men. But his claim that only the women in The Rover express their sexual will is incorrect, as many of Behn's female characters do not conform to the ideal of modesty: "Proper conduct for a lady being made advances to, was not to indicate except by signs any willingness to proceed in the matter" (340). The men who hold this attitude in

Behn's plays come into conflict with women who express their sexual

5 desires. Sullivan ignores Behn' s disreputable women, who are criticized

by the men whose wills they refuse to accept.

While seventeenth century comedy is usually about the triumph of

a male hero, Behn finds ways of emphasizing the female point of view.

Although Behn adheres to conventional plot structures, which appear

to favor love, Behn is not idealistic about love as she presents the

dissenting view, that money and status are more important than emotions.

In Behn's comedies, romantic love triumphs, but only on the surface.

Disreputable women are a sort of reproach to the genre because they

are characters with whom the playwright sympathizes yet who do not profes~

the genre's belief in love. Behn, in writing the plays is, like her disreputable women, resisting patriarchy by cunning ways instead of directly. Behn is criticizing in a way that does not alienate her audience.

Several critics focus on the way Behn departs from comic convention.

Carlson argues that Behn "departs from 'comic tradition' by presenting"

characters such as Julia in The Lucky Chance who insist upon prioritizing

"independence" and "sexual desires" above society's expectations (146-147).

Both Sullivan and Hutner have noted that the ending of The Rover is not purely comic. Sullivan claims Angellica "belongs in a more radical piece" because "the play is basically modest in its feminism." When

Angellica attempts to shoot Willmore for abandoning her, "she intrudes an incongruous element of tragedy into an otherwise light-hearted comedy"

(344). In addition, Hutner points out that the attempt to rape Florinda immediately before the wedding "undermines the moral code that marriage supposedly embodies," so that her marriage to Belvile appears "disturbing and fictional" (111). While Behn cannot dispute the idea of romantic

6 "J_ ,)Ve directly, she introduces these unsettling plot twists through disreputable women who do not share the belief in romantic love espoused by the "virtuous" characters. The voice of Behn' s disreputable women serves as an "incongruous element" in all her plays.

Spencer discusses the way Behn differs from her contemporaries by presenting strong, assertive female characters. vfuile Sullivan sees

The Rover as the only one of Behn's plays with powerful women, Spencer discusses The Feigned Courtesans as also having aggressive, assertive women. "The typical sex comedy of the 1670s was a story of masculine dominance and sexual success" (89). Like Spencer, Frye describes the typical "formula" of comedy as one usually written for the "younger men" in the audience (164): "What normally happens is that a young rnan wants a young woman, that his desire is resisted by some opposition, usually paternal, and that near the end of the play some twist in the pJ.ot enables the hero to have his will" ( 163) . For Spencer, Behn overcomes the limitations of comedy by giving female characters a strong voice and having them actively pursue the men they love. Women playwrights during the Restoration "empower female characters" by giving them "more lines to speak" and "establishing a woman's viewpoint on the action as central" (Spencer 90). Behn "allows the fullest possible scope to female action" (100). Spencer points out that while Behn must follow comic convention, her plays differ from comedies by men in that women are in control of the action. In many of Behn's other plays, disreputable women are given a large role in the action and enough of a voice i:.o express the motivations behind their actions.

One of the ways disreputable women in Behn's comedies use patriarchy to their own advantage is by objecting to forced marriages, a common

7 theme in Restoration comedy, and (Hume says) the central theme in ten

of Behn's plays (184). Because, in the seventeenth century, love was

considered "the new religion," playwrights protested arranged marriages

(Duffy 102) . Stone also points out that arranged marriages "came under

growing assault from the fashionable playwrights," and he identifies

Behn as having "launched the attack" (277). In her discussion of BehCl's

drama, Taetzsch claims that the "oppressive" forced marriage is "subverted

and replaced by a new ideology- that of romantic love" (31). Gareau

claims Behn believed in "free love" in which no interest was involved, whether "property, title, money, ambition" (229).

Several critics interpret the importance placed upon romantic love by the virtuous characters in Behn's comedies as evidence that Behn's plays promote the idea of romantic love. But in Behn's comedies, many of the women who are against forced marriages do not believe in the importance of love in marriage. Indeed, Ezell cites Behn as one of the many female poets who warned women of the dangers of love. "Female poets reviled men for being fickle seducers. For women, declare this group of female writers, love is a trap." In Behn's poem, "love Armed," the woman is depicted as suffering while the man is characterized by his "pride and cruelty" (106). Behn's concern with the dangers of love was based on the dangers of love during the Restoration. The Restoration

Rake, "systematically lusty, capricious, wild and jesting," would lie to women about his love, and women who did not understand his cynicism were often ruined. The only way for women to prosper in such a hostile environment was to renounce love (Gareau 177). Behn's concern with the dangers of falling in love is expressed in her plays through disreputable women who share the same fears about romantic love.

8 In Behn's comedies, many disreputable females are concerned with

providing for themselves financially. "Money came first in real life;

love always triumphed on the stage" (Vernon 386). In Behn's comedies, marriage for love is not possible without money: "Her stories and plays

a : ~e full of traditional attacks on financial inequality and particularly

how it interferes with love." But instead of exploring the way money

affects relationships, Behn is interested in "the inherited

loot-out-of-the-blue" (Treglown 134). While Treglown is correct in

s.-tying that inherited money does make many marriages for the virtuous

characters in Behn's comedies possible, many disreputable women have to confront the problem of being unable to marry as they choose because of the lack of money. However, other critics do see money as being a major concern in Behn's work: "A woman had to find security and happiness in marriage, or had - for so long as she was able - to gather guineas and sovereigns" (Kronenberger 111). While Taetzsch acknowledges that during the seventeenth century marriage for love became popular,

Wt;~alth remained an important factor: "Selecting a mate for economic reasons is expedient but not romantic . . • yet the practical importance of economics can't be denied" (32). Lussier sees money as an important metaphor in Behn's plays; in "The Vile Merchandise of Fortune," he deals with Behn's use of economic language to describe relationships between men and women. Behn's use of the language of trade and business implicitly compares love relationships with economic exchanges, emphasizing what a large role money plays in love relationships. Lussier concludes th-tt men are in charge of the exchanges; in fact, the reason disreputable women often come in conflict with men is that they insist on controlling economic exchanges, including marriages. Behn's disreputable female

9 characters refuse to allov1 men control, and instead use money to their own advantage. They know how to use marriage and sex in order to maintain themselves in the upper classes.

Many of Behn's disreputable female characters place equal importance on money and love. Although Kavenik claims that the adulterous wives in Behn's plays are passive victims of forced marriages, several v•ives are content to marry for mercenary reasons. "Harital infidelity is

. treated sympathetically" in Behn's comedies. "In these plays, young women are forced or tricked into marrying old husbands. All have former lovers to whom they were betrothed and who reappear to 'rescue' them" (189). This generalization does apply to Julia in The False Count, who passively accepts her father's command to marry a jealous old man and whose honor is never questioned in the play. But in contrast, both

Mirtilla in The Younger Brother and Lady Fancy in Sir Patient Fancy marry solely to obtain wealth, intending to cuckold their husbands.

Both are criticized in the play for their promiscuity, but while Julia unhappily accepts the man her father wants her to marry, Mirtilla and

Lady Fancy are in control of their o\~ destiny.

Although women were allowed more freedom than many writers assume, there is resistance to strong female characters both by women vmo adopt patriarchy's ideal of femininity and by men who represent the patriarchy.

But this confrontation between powerful characters and the characters the audience can sympathize with is common in comedy. Frequently in comedy "someone with a good deal of social prestige and power, who is able to force much of the play's society into line with his obsession" finds himself opposed (Frye 169). Disreputable females in Behn's comedies are laughed at or criticized because they do not share the same values

10 as the other characters. They do not give priority to romantic love over mercenary interests. Yet they are redeemed by the end of the play because they confront the powerful nEle figure who attempts to force his will on others.

11 Adulterous Wives

Behn's plays differ from those of her contemporaries in that many of her plays end with a wife leaving a husband with the money she originally sought. In other Restoration comedies, a woman's only means of revenging herself was to cuckold the husband: "A married woman could not leave her husband save by returning to her family or becoming a kept woman"

(Hume 194). Hume insists that comedy was not hostile to the institution of marriage, but to "marriage of economic convenience, and especially to 'forced' marriage" (142). Behn's comedies are different because separation and divorce are a possibility in many cases, and women can marry with the intention of using their husbands for financial gain and then leaving them. Thus, adulterous wives in Behn's comedies use patriarchy to achieve their own ends.

Behn's sympathy for adulterous wives is apparent because she justifies adultery by presenting romantic love as more important than marriage.

In the seventeenth century, "companionate marriage" in which the husband and wife share equal responsibilities and equal rights was seen as the ideal because this was said to discourage adultery (Stone 325). In Behn's comedies, marriages arranged according to interest tend to result in adultery. But women could not separate financial considerations from the selection of a marriage partner because this decision determined

"social and material survival" (Taetzsch 31). Lady Fancy in Sir Patient

Fancy, Mirtilla in The Younger Brother, and Lady Desbro in The Roundheads commit adultery because they marry someone they do not love in order

12 to be financially secure. In these plays, Behn condones adultery: when a woman is forced to marry someone she does not love, sex outside of marriage is seen as her only emotional outlet. In many of Behn's plays, adulterous wives continue their relationships with the men they have been prevented from marrying. Private contracts and emotional bonds are more important than the public contract made during a wedding ceremony.

Because marriage is perceived by adulterous wives as solely a means of obtaining money, they feel justified in pursuing extra-marital relationships.

Behn's sympathy towards adulterous wives 1s expressed when the plays end with their achieving their goals, although adultery is condemned by some characters within the plays as it would have been by many members of the Restoration audience. "Feminine promiscuity, even if it were nothing other than a mirror image of masculine behavior, was intolerable"

(Goreau 183). This is especially a problem for married women who risk their husband's reputation and the legitimacy of children. The "'double standard' of sexual behaviour" meant that while the wife was expected to ignore her husband's adultery, hers was unforgivable. "The strictest standards of sexual behaviour" were imposed on women and "enforced by all the legal, moral, and religious pressures" (Stone 502).

Behn's adulterous wives insist on controlling their sexuality beyond what society considers acceptable; they are thus subject to criticism in the play. Behn's sympathy for adulterous wives is apparent in her portrayal of the reaction to the adultery as excessive. In The Younger

Brother, for example, when Mirtilla rejects George's love because she wants to have sex with someone else, his anger at her sexual aggressiveness appears extreme. When he speaks of her as though she were a force of

13 nature, it is as though the strength of her sexuality were natural to her femininity. She is "false as the insatiate Seas, that smiling tempt the vain adventurer, whom flattering, far from any saving there, swell their false Wares to a destructive Storm" (4.1). George attempts to convince her lover of her dishonesty. She is "uncertain and more wanton than the Winds, that spare no Births of Nature in their wild course, from the tall Cedar to the Flowers beneath, but ruffle, ravish, and ruin all" (4.1). In spite of what he says, she is not responsible for any destruction or suffering in the play. In fact, after being rejected by Mirtilla, George falls in love with a wealthy woman.

Sir Patient Fancy's anger at his wife's adultery, in Sir Patient

Fancy, is also excessive. "Was ever so prodigal a Harlot?" "I do defy thee, Satan, thou greater Whore than she of Babylon, thou Abomination to thy Sex" (5.1). Because he exaggerates his wife's adultery, his behavior appears comic while she appears sympathetic to the audience. In The

Lucky Chance, Sir Feeble forces Leticia to marry him by claiming that

Bellmour is dead; and he hides Bellmour's pardon so that, (thinking he has not been pardoned by the King) Bellmour will not return and claim

Leticia. Even so, when the couple is reunited and Leticia runs away,

Sir Feeble expresses outrage: "I will find thee out - and lash thy filthy and Adulterous Carcase" (5.7). This excessive hatred for something that is not considered a crime in men is made by Behn to seem absurd.

Adulterous wives are condemned not only by the men they reject, but also by virgins who, conforming to stereotypes of femininity, place much value on chastity. The anger they express towards adulterous wives is a reflection of the patriarchal values men have taught them. There is a conflict in Behn's plays between women who believe that chastity

14 defines their femininity and women who refuse to inhibit their sexuality.

Single women are disgusted when married women express sexual desire to men other than their husbands because they have been conditioned by society to believe that it is a woman's role to be passive. This conflict is exacerbated when the virgins disguise themselves as men and confront adulterous wives. Kavenik claims that Behn's "use of the breeches part" allows her to show "that women could share the libertine philosophy with men and experience its liberating effects" (190). But the opposite happens in the case of Olivia and Celinda. They represent patriarchy by expressing anger at female promiscuity while they are in male disguise. In The

Younger Brother, Olivia disguises herself as a page in order to spy on her brother's fianc~e while he is in Paris. Olivia is horrified when

Mirtilla expresses sexual desire for her, calling her a "prostitute in

Soul as Body, she doats even on me in Breeches." Olivia calls her "a fickle Creature" because she has forgotten the love she promised to George

(1.1). In The Town Fop, Diana's desire for Celinda is also met with disgust. Celinda, dressed in breeches, attempts to console Diana after her husband has rejected her on their wedding night. After Celinda praises

Diana's beauty, Diana offers herself to her, insisting that "she that can give, may too retain Desires" (4.1). Celinda is outraged by Diana's forwardness: "How in an instant thou hast chill'd my Blood,/ And made me know no Woman can be good?" Celinda cannot accept that Diana has stepped outside her female role to act as the seducer: "I that Beauty can no more admire,/ Who ere I sue, can yield to my Desire" (4.1). Celinda, like Olivia, voices a stereotypical male response to female sexuality.

Although characters in her plays voice hostility towards adultery,

Behn reconciles the adulterous women to other characters in the play

15 as well as to members of the audience by having them help prevent forced marriages. Although Lady Fancy is originally criticized by Isabella for her promiscuity, she redeems herself by helping her marry Lodwick, although her father is opposed to the marriage. Lady Fancy insists to

Sir Patient that he allow his daughter to select her own husband: "I would have all Women chuse their Man, as I have done" (2.1). In order to spend more time with her lover, Lady Fancy introduces Wittmore as a wealthy suitor to Isabella. Wittmore is then able to tell Sir Patient that he is tak 1 ~g Isabella to marry her, when he actually takes her to marry Lodwick. Lady Fancy urges Sir Patient not to witness the marriages because she insists it would be dangerous for his health to go outside.

By resisting the patriarch who tries to control others, Lady Fancy reconciles herself to the other characters. Similarly, in The Lucky

Chance, Lady Fulbank promises Bredwell she will help him marry Diana because she regrets having been forced to marry someone she did not love.

Lady Fulbank advises Diana not to make the same mistake she and Leticia made and accept a marriage in which there is no love: "Let our two Fates warn your approaching one: I love young Bredwell and must plead for him" (4.1).

Behn also expresses sympathy for adulterous wives by showing the circumstances which prevent them from marrying for love, so that the contempt they shaw towards the institution of marriage is understandable.

One of the few ways for women to obtain money or property is to marry.

In The Roundheads, set during the Reform, Desbro has taken Freeman's estate by accusing him of fighting against the government. Freeman's fianc~e marries Desbro in order to return his estate after the king returns to power. She reassures Freeman that she "married only thy Estate" and

16 calls her husband a "Beastly Hypocrite, thou Know'st I made no other

use of him, But a dull Property to advance our IDve" (2.1). Kubek sees this statement as indicative of Lady Desbro's passivity: "Lady Desbro

seems comfortable with her role as object of and conduit for exchange"

(92). But Kubek does not consider that the estate Lady Desbro is passing on to Freeman will provide her with financial security once she marries

Freeman. Lady Desbro understands her marriage as a means for her to obtain property. She supports the repeal of the Draconian Acts, which punish adultery with death, because "we stand for the Liberty and Property of our Sex" (5.2). Marriage provides "Liberty" to explore love with other men and "Property" that canes with a wealthy husband. Likewise,

Lady Fancy cannot marry Wittmore because both are poor. Instead, she marries Sir Patient because the money she will inherit after he dies will allow her to marry Wittmore. When she believes her husband has died, she urges her lover to "claim thy Rites of IDve without controul, without the contradiction of wretched Poverty or Jealousy" (5.1). After

Sir Patient discovers her with Wittmore, he reassures Sir Patient that his wife has not corrmitted a crime towards him because "many a wealthy

Citizen, Sir, has contributed to the maintenance of a younger Brother's

Mistress" (5.1).

The Younger Brother also deals with the problems of wanting to marry a younger brother. Although Mirtilla has promised to love George, he is a younger brother and as such does not expect an inheritance from his father. Mirtilla marries saneone she does not love in order to achieve financial security. She tells George marriage is "a necessary trick, devis'd by wary Age, to traffick 'twixt a Portion and a Jointure; him whom I lov'd, is married to my Soul" (2.2). For these wanen, companionate

17 marriage is impossible; their poverty forces them to place financial concerns first, but this does not prevent them from pursuing their love

interests.

The audience in Behn is sympathetic to the adulterous wives who have made emotional commitments elsewhere: by marrying someone they do not love, they are able to buy the men they do love. Wittmore tells

Lady Fancy in front of Sir Patient Fancy that he will "neither love nor marry Isabella, without his Permission; and I doubt not but I shall by my Respects to him gain his consent." Aside to her he says, "to cuckold him" ( 2 .1) . Lady Fancy uses the money she has gained from her husband in order to live prosperously with Wittmore. Similarly, in The Lucky

Chance, Julia uses money she has taken from her husband in order to buy sex with Gayman. She offers Gayman money in exchange for sex, but does not reveal her identity. Later, Gayman takes her husband's place in bed, and she recognizes him. Gallagher interprets Gayman's inability to recognize Julia even while they are having sex as indicative of women's inability to represent themselves, because Julia cannot reveal herself to Gayman and still maintain her honor. Yet Julia does not want to reveal her identity to Gayman, and while Gallagher claims that "Julia's problem becomes her state of unexchangeability" (81), I would argue that Julia does not want to "give herself" (82). She wants to buy. Julia does not need to pay to have sex with Gayman, but the money allows her anonymity.

While her husband's money allows her to have sex with Gayman on her own terms, it is ironic that her husband allows Gayman to take his place in bed in order not to have to give up the three hundred pounds he has lost to Gayman gambling. What is most apparent is that couples need money in order to buy and give themselves.

18 Adulterous wives object to forced marriages because they believe in self-determination, and not, as some critics have argued, because they believe in the importance of love in marriage. The objection to forced marriages is often based on the belief that women should have control over their economic and social future. For example, critics have used Lady Fulbank's speech lamenting that she did not marry the man she loved as evidence that Behn believed in the importance of love in marriage. However, in Behn' s comedies, women who marry for mercenary reasons seldom regret their marriages. Lady Fulbank's main complaint is that the decision was out of her control:

Oh how fatal are forc'd Marriages!

How many Ruines one such Match pulls on­

Had I but kept my sacred Vows to Gayman

How happy had I been - how prosperous he!

Whilst now I languish in a loath'd Embrace. (1.2)

Stone calls Lady Fulbank's speech an example of the "extreme statements of the new system of values" in which marriages for interest were coming under assault by playwrights from the 1680s to the 1740s, in favor of marriages based on love (277). Coakley agrees with Stone. Behn "is not so much a radical as reflecting the growing trend away from the patriarchal family with its accent on kinship and alliance toward a nuclear family founded on affection and mutual respect" (243). While this may be true for Lady Fulbank, who was engaged to a young, wealthy man when she was forced to marry an old man, the same morality cannot be applied to adulterous wives in Behn's other comedies who love poor men. Women who marry for money in Behn's other comedies usually do not lament their decision. Mirtilla, for instance, feels no emotional bond with her husband

19 but thinks of him only in terms of the style of life he provides for her. She calls him "my Drudge, my Led-Horse, for Necessity to fill my

Train- no more" (5.3). Taetzsch points out that for Behn wealth "is ideally irrelevant - yet difficult to dislodge when the end pursuit of love is marriage" (32). Forced marriage is often an issue of control between men and women; women who marry for money merely see themselves as taking control of their economic future.

Behn makes the audience sympathetic to adulterous wives, both by showing that they are not as bad as the other characters in the play claim and by showing that some women have to marry for rconey or else face poverty. Adulterous wives oppose forced marriages not because they believe in the sacredness of love, but because they believe women should have control over vJhom they marry. They see marriage as a way to advance their interest. In 1688, George Savile wrote against divorce in "The lady's New-Year's Gift: or, Advice to a Daughter," a widely read letter of advice directed to young vvomen. against divorce, that "the Institution of Marriage is too sacred to admit a Liberty of objection to it . • . it is safer some Injustice should be conniv'd at in a very few instances, than to break into an Establishment upon which the Order of Humane Society doth so much depend" (19). Savile argues that even at the expense of injustice, custom should not be changed nor should exceptions be made.

Behn departs from these ideas at least to the point of having her female characters argue that marriage is just a tool to obtain money.

20 Obstreperous ~vidov~s

In Behn's comedies, widows act like marriage brokers. They set

up advantageous deals and break up deals that will not work. They help

women marry for love because they believe in self-determination, but

their cynicism prevents them from idealizing love. Although obstreperous

widows are mocked, and with reason, in several of Behn' s plays, Behn

is sympathetic to them when they interfere with male authority figures who attempt to force others to marry.

Behn's widows view relationships as financial exchanges. They are aware of their own status as commodities and try to set up the best deals for themselves, even if it means attracting a mate who is only interested in their wealth. But they are afraid to trust their emotions in deciding whom to marry because they are afraid of being exploited for their money. Behn's depiction of marriages arranged by women is historically accurate: "In the higher social classes, the active role taken by women in arranging marriages, even when a capable male head of the family was available, suggests that won1en traditionally were involved in this important social process" (Ezell 34). In Sir Patient

Fancy and The Widow Ranter, the widows are at first criticized, but their fight against authority figures who attempt to control marriage arrangements earns them the respect of the other characters in the play.

In some ways, they deserve to be mocked, but ultimately they are presented as good characters because they rebel against the patriarchal order in which men force others to marry according to their dictates.

21 In Sir Patient Fancy Lady Knowell is laughed at because of her affectation of learning. When she enters the play, she calls her daughter and Isabella "unthinking Creatures" whose only knowledge is of how to dress. She cannot read the classics in the original languages without being overcome with emotion. "can any thing that's great or moving be express 'd in filthy English?" (1.1). Her use of Latin in conversation and her contempt for the English language make her appear eccentric.

Sir Patient is correct in calling her "that Lady of Eternal Noise and hard words," because she often uses words from other languages or she will quote the classics in ordinary conversation. He calls her "the intolerable Lady, Madam Romance, that walking Library of profane Books" claiming that she has "vanity and Tongue enough to debauch any nation under civil Government" (2.1). Lucretia complains about her mother's interest in learning. "Methinks to be read in the Arts, as they call

'em, is the peculiar Province of the other Sex" (1.1). Isabella agrees that Lady Knov.;rell is "a little too affected because of her learning"

( 1.1) , but defends her to an extent when she complains that men "boast of the learning and languages; but if they can find any of our Sex fuller of words, and to so little purpose as some of their Gownmen, I'll be content to change my Petticoats for Pantaloons" (1.1).

In the same way that Lady Knowell insists that others appreciate the classics, Ranter encourages others to drink and smoke. Her obsession with drinking is equally absurd. Her coachman objects to her "hard

Drinking" (1.3). She constantly mentions alcohol. She tells Hazard he must begin to smoke because "'tis a part of good Breeding" (1.3).

Lady Surelove dislikes the way Ranter's house smells of tobaco, punch, and food (2.2). Although she expresses surprise that Ranter drinks

22 punch in the morning, Ranter suggests that Surelove drink (1.3). Daring

complains that she has been drunk with every "Blockhead in the Country"

(4.3). Friendly complains about her "primitive nature" (1.1). However, while Ranter's dialogue makes her a comic character, she is not a flat

character. Her actions make apparent her courage and her concern for others.

Although these widows exhibit eccentric behavior that is criticized

by other characters in the play, their opposition to forced marriages

redeems them both in the eyes of the characters in the play and those of the audience. The play's assessment of Lady Knowell changes once

it becomes apparent that she wants to help her daughter, Lucretia, marry the man she loves, Leander. Lucretia is initially critical of her moth.-:!r both because she objects to her studying the classics and because she believes she \Jants Leander for herself. But Lucretia is mistaken, so that Behn suggests that Leander is initially too critical of her mother;

Behn wants the audience to be more sympathetic to Lady Knowell than are the other characters in the play. Sir Patient's criticism of Lady

Knowell can be taken no more seriously than Lucretia's, because he is obsessed with controlling others, and the real source of his anger is her refusal to marry Leander, his nephev1. She pretends to be in love with Leander in order to allow him to marry her daughter, with vmom he is in love. She later tells Leander: "I have no Joy beyond cheating that filthy Uncle of thine" (5.1). Lady Knowell arranges for Sir Patient

Fancy to be distracted by doctors who convince him he is sick, while the marriages take place. It is apparent that Behn wants the audience to sympathize with Lady Knowell because she is able to thwart Sir Patient's attempts to impose his will on others.

23 In the same way that Lady Knov1ell redeems herself by helping her

daughter to marry Leander, Ranter redeens herself by helping her friend,

Chrisante, marry the man she loves. Ranter promises Chrisante she will

help her marry Friendly, although her father has forbidden her to see

him. Ranter arranges a meeting between the two before Friendly has

to go off to the battlefield. Ranter scolds Dullman for flirting with

Chrisante: "Leave off being an old Buffoon, that is, a Lover turn'd

ridiculous by Age" (2.2). When Daring kidnaps Chrisante in order to

convince her to marry him, Ranter disguises herself as a man and goes

into the battlefield to fight Daring and free her. "Why should I sigh

and whine, and make myself an Ass, and him conceited? no, instead of

snivelling I am resolved • to beat the Rascal, and bring off Chrisante"

( 4. 3) • Ranter's alcoholism is offset by the courage she shov1s in saving

Chrisante.

Another example of opposition to forced marriages by widovJS occurs

in The City Heiress: Lady Galliard rebels against her family both by

refusing the man they have selected for her to marry and by pursuing someone of whom her mother disapproves. She refuses to allow her family to control her actions after she is widowed. They attempt to arrange a marriage for her, but she is against it on the mere principle of having to accept her family's dictates. Although she claims that she could accept Charles as a husband, she refuses hin1 because her relatives want her to marry hi1n: "I think my chiefest dislike is, because my Relations wish it a Match between us. It is not hate to him, but natural contradiction" (2.2). She further rebels against family members in her relationship with vVilding. Wilding says her mother is "rigid" and

"is ever preaching to her against the Vices of Youth, and t'other end

24 of the Tovm Sparks; dreads nothing so much as her Daughter's marrying

a villanous Tory" ( 1.1) . vvilding is the kind of man her mother has

warned her about. He has been disinherited by his uncle for being a

Tory, because of his vices, and because he brags about the women he

has sex with. Lady Galliard calls him "a Rakeshame ..• without Money

or Credit, without Land either in present or prospect; and half a dozen

hungry Vices, " but she nonetheless pursues him ( 4 .1) • This suggests

that she loves Wilding in order to contradict her mother. ~Vhile she

refuses to marry according to her family ' s dictates because she is determined that the decision should be hers, her cynicism towards love prevents her from marrying Wilding for love.

Although widows help other women to marry according to love, they do so because they believe in self-determination, for their ovm cynicism prevents them from idealizing love. Thus, although Lady Youthly objects to her granddaughter being forced to marry against her will, she is herself willing to marry George, even though he is only interested in her money. In The Younger Brother, Lady Youthly objects to Sir Rowland marrying her granddaughter, Teresia, because he is much older, and becau:>e

Teresia deserves a husband whose youth and fortune match her own. She knows as well as Teresia that she cannot force her to marry Sir Rowland. vfuen she tries to explain this to him, he refuses to listen. Although both Sir Rowland and Lady Youthly are much older than the person they hope to marry, the difference between them is that Lady Youthly believes that his younger son, George, wants to marry her for her money. During the seventeenth century, in order to marry, younger sons had to

"accumulate, by individual effort in some profession or occupation, sufficient income and capital to enable them to maintain the gentlemanly

25 style of life in which they had been brought up" (Stone 48). Because

George has refused to learn a trade, he apparently has no choice except to marry for money. Sir Rowland is intent on selling his son, and Lady

Youthly wants to be the one to buy him. "I shall get more by shewing hlin, than the Rhinoceros. Gad, I'll sell the young Rogue by Inch of candle" (2.1). George merely sees himself fortunate enough to have provided financially for hin5elf without having to marry for money:

"The Widow, with young Jointure, and old Face, Affected Mein, and Amorous

Grimace, Uses to fall to th' younger Brother's share" (5.4).

Widow Ranter has a similarly cynical attitude towards love in ma:-riage. Just as Lady Knowell sees George as a piece of property to be purchased, Ranter believes men are only interested in her for her money. Yet she appears pleased that men are attracted to her for her money. She is grateful that her old husband died while she was still

"young enough to spend t.his fifty thousand Pound in better Company"

(1.3). Her cynicism towards love in marriage is most apparent when she insists that Lady Surelove should be glad to be rid of her old husband, because an old husband is like "an old fusty weather beaten Skeleton, as dried as Stock-fish" (1.3). Her refusal to ackna.vledge the emotional bond between Surelove and her husband indicates that she perceives such marriages to be mere financial arrangements. She believes that men who seek her out are only interested in her wealth, but she appears to enjoy the attention. "If it were not for that, I might sit still and sigh, and cry out, a Jl1iracle! a Miracle! at sight of a Man within my Doors" (1.3). Ranter appears to be correct in believing that men pursue her for her rnoney, because shortly after Hazard arrives in Virginia fran England, Friendly suggests to him to visit Surelove, whose husband

26 is dying, or Widow Ranter because "a younger Brother may pick out a pretty Livelihood here that way" (1.1). When he meets Ranter, she tells him: "You are like all the young Fellows, the first thing they do vlhen they come to a strange Place, is to enquire what Fortunes there are."

When he denies this, she is offended and calls him a "Fool": "We rich

Widows are the best Corrm:xiity this Country affords" (1.3). Although v'ilidow Ranter calls herself a "corrm:xiity," she is in charge of selling herself, and is afraid of losing her fortune to someone who pretends to love her. The widows' cynical attitude towards love is also apparent in the way they distrust the men they love. Ranter is unhappy arout being in love with Daring because he does not return her love. "yVhy shou 'd

I love the Dog, unless it be a Judgment upon me" ( 1. 2 ) • Also, she is afraid he will take advantage of her. "Hy fortune is too good to trust the Rogue, my Money makes me an Infidel" ( 1. 3) . Similar1 y, Lady Galliard is afraid to marry because she feels the need to protect her fortune.

Ranter and Galliard believe that marriage is too important a decision to be based on their emotions.

Even though widows in Behn' s plays often deserve to be m::>eked for their behavior, Behn is ultimately sympathetic to them because they rebel against patriarchy by confronting men who try to force marriages on others. Obstreperous widows prevent male authority figures fran forcing others to marry according to their wishes. Lussier speculates that Behn' s women "are buyers; through \vidowhood or inheritance" ( 384), but they are nonetheless "victimized by marriage speculators" (389).

The widows in Behn's plays are very aware of their ability to purchase men, but are assertive enough not to allow themselves to be "victimized."

27 Disdainful Daughters

Just as Behn's adulterous wives and obstreperous widows refuse to accept forced marriages because they believe in self-determination, the disdainful daughter is determined to use the institution of marriage for her own purpose: to enter the aristocratic class. The disdainful daughter rebels against patriarchy by refusing to acknowledge male power.

In The False Count, Isabella not only refuses to obey her father's wish that she marry Antonio, but refuses to be faithful if she is forced to marry. Isabella believes her beauty should allow her to marry an aristocrat, and she will not allow her father, a merchant, to use her as a commodity in a lesser exchange. The more romantic-minded characters are less interested in asserting their rights than is Isabella. Although

Isabella is justifiably criticized by Antonio for her rudeness, he is wrong in criticizing her for her pride, because that pride gives her the courage to confront her father.

Although Antonio is critical of Isabella for wanting to marry outside her class, Behn makes it clear that she is merely afraid to marry someone like her father. Antonio is mistaken when he says Isabella aspires to marrying a Viscount because she has "wholly forgot her original

Dunghill" (1.1). When she insults Antonio, he attributes it to her pride, yet her complaints about him appear to be complaints about her father: "You understand your Pen and Ink, haw to count your dirty Money, trudge to and fro chaffering of base commodities, and cozening those you deal with" (1.2). This passage describes her father, who values

28 money more than he does personal relationships, and Isabella believes

Antonio is like this. When she tells Francisco, "That's very hard,

because you are a laborious, ill-bred Tradesman, I must be bound to

be a mean Citizen's Wife" (1.2), she mistakenly assumes that all citizens

are like her father.

Antonio also criticizes her for believing that money and title

are more important than love, yet the other characters in the play do

not deny the importance of money in marriage. When Carlos reports that

Isabella has made advances to him, Antonio responds, "So would she for

your Title, were you deform'd, and had no shape of Man about you; but

me, because a little Citizen and Merchant, she so reviles" (1.1). Yet

at the beginning of that scene, carlos identifies Julia's wealth as

one of the reasons he is interested in her. He admits he is in love

with Julia because she is "young, rich, beautiful" ( 1.1) . Status and wealth make marriages possible. Isabella believes that the beauty she

sees in the mirror can allow her entrance to a higher social class through marriage, just as the appearance of wealth allows Guiliom to marry

Isabella. Like a courtesan, Isabella is proud of her appearance, and believes she can use it for profit in entering a higher class, but it is Guiliom who manipulates appearance in order to achieve wealth.

Although Antonio is too harsh in judging Isabella, he is correct in observing that she has not been "bred" properly and that she does not know how to behave. Isabella attempts to insult Antonio by telling him "there's as much difference between a Citizen and a true bred cavalier--" when he interrupts to insult her: "As between you and a true bred Woman of Honour" (1.2). Not only is her rudeness to Antonio a sign that she has not been raised properly, but she also appears to

29 be honestly impressed with Guiliom's "graceful Mein" and "fine"

conversation, even though it is apparent to the audience that his attempts

to behave like a count are absurd: "What a peculiar Grace there is

in every word that comes from the mouth of a cavalier" ( 4.1) . Guiliom' s

declaration of love to Isabella is comic because he mixes poetic images

with images of his work as a chimney sweep. He pretends that he has

fallen in love at first sight, claiming he is "wounded" because her

"harmonious Eyes" have "fir'd my Heart to that degree,/ No Chimney ever

burnt like me" (3.2). vVhen Antonio insists Guiliom must refine his

manners in order to appear to be a lord, Guiliom refuses: "as if a

lord had not more privilege to be more saucy, more rude, impertinent,

slovenly and foolish than the rest of his Neighbors, or Mankind" (3.1).

Yet Isabella chastises Antonio for not treating her with more respect,

since she believes he is beneath her class. When she claims he is

different from members of the higher classes, she calls him a "saucy

Impertinent" ( l. 2) , reiterating what Guiliom has classified as

characteristics of the higher classes.

Although the play criticizes Isabella for her pride and her vanity,

her pride keeps her from obeying her father. Antonio calls her "most

ridiculously proud, vain and fantastical" (1.1), and he vows to Carlos

at the beginning of the play that he will be "reveng'd on all her Pride

and scorn." He tells Guiliom that he deserves Isabella's dowry because

he will "have the plague of such a vlife with it" (5.1). Carlos calls

her an "aukard, fond, conceited thing" and a "taudry Creature" (4.2).

When Isabella tells her father she intends to marry a cavalier or a nobleman, Francisco is horrified at her pride: "Are you so proud,

forsooth, that a Merchant won't down with you, but you must be gaping

30 after a Cap and Feather, a Silver Sword with a more dreadful Ribbon at the hilt?" Isabella even admits she is vain but ascribes it to her femininity rather than a fault of her own. She asks Guiliom to "pardon the frailty of my Sex's vanity" (4.2).

What other characters in the play interpret as vanity in Isabella is actually her distorted image of herself: "Ah, Heavens, these Eyes

-that Look, -that pretty Leer ••. a Marchioness wou'd so much better become me." She says of her face: "are there not Lines that foretel a world of Greatness, and promise much Honour?" (3.2). Yet Francisco seems to have the idea that men looking at women will necessarily lead to sexual relations, as when he tells Isabella not to go near Guiliom.

"'!hey may look on ye, and Looking breed Liking, and Liking, Love; and

Love a damn'd thing, call'd Desire; and Desire begets the Devil and all of Mischief to young Wenches" ( 3. 2) . He does not want his wife or daughter to look at men. When Guiliom comes to the house, Francisco tells his wife and daughter to leave because a man is coming. "'Ihe

Devil's in these Women, and there be but a Loop-hole to peep out of, they'll spy a man" (3.2). Francisco insists on complete control over his wife and daughter. Although it is not apparent to the other characters in the play, Isabella believes that the only way she can gain control over herself is by escaping her father. Because she has been kept so sheltered, however, she believes the only way of doing this is to marry someone better than her father, someone from the upper class.

Behn's sympathy for Isabella is also apparent in Isabella's outspoken opposition to forced marriage. The women in the play who do believe in love are more submissive to male commands. Both Antonio and Carlos believe that women should marry for love and not position or money,

31 and so they dislike Isabella because she wants to marry merely to be

an aristocrat. Yet, while Clara and Julia are prevented by their father

from marrying the man they love, Isabella refuses to marry the man her

father has selected because he is not an aristocrat. While Clara and

Julia accept their father's command to marry according to his wishes,

Isabella is too aggressive to accept her father's command. She vows

to comnit adultery if she is forced to marry: "If my Father do force

me to marry this small Creature of a Merchant, I shall make an Intrigue

with some body of Quality" (3.2). For Isabella, the refusal to accept

forced marriage is less about love than about self-determination. Isabella

begs her father to "pray keep him to your self, if you please; I'll marry none of him. I'll see him hanged first" (1.2). Even the characters who do not believe in love as a motive for marriage refuse to accept

forced marriages.

This play is different from Behn's other comedies in that Behn

focuses on the conflict between the father and the daughter. In other

plays, female characters find arguing with their fathers futile, because fathers usually refuse to listen. While Isabella can argue with her father over the social class of her future husband, in Behn's other comedies, fathers and brothers do not accept love as a reason for marriage.

In many of Behn's comedies, daughters depend on their father's wealth to enable them to marry; thus, they often have less say than their father in who their future husband will be. In The Rover, Florinda can only appeal to her brother to help her avoid marriage to an old man, but he will only do so if she marries the man he selects. When Florinda's sister, Hellena, interferes and argues that Florinda should marry the man she selects, Pedro refuses to listen. He calls Hellena "mad" when

32 she complains that Florinda's marriage to an old man is as much of a

"confinement" as being in a convent (1.1). Because she speaks out,

Pedro calls her a "wild cat" and orders her to be locked up until she

can be sent to a monastery. Although Florinda is in love with Belville,

she knows she cannot object to her brother's wish that she marry Antonio

because he is young and wealthy. She cannot argue with Pedro for her

marriage to Belville on the basis of love.

The Rover does not develop the daughter's relationship to authority

as well as The False Count because the two women solve their problems

by running away. Hellena is the heroine of that play; she is liked

by most of the other characters and is portrayed positively by Behn

to the audience. Hellena is sympathetic because she is aggressive enough

to confront her brother and go after the man she loves, yet she does

so only by using deceitful methods, such as disguising herself as a

Gypsy and as a man. Because Isabella is not as manipulative as Hellena,

but instead more confrontational, she receives more criticism within

the play. Yet Behn presents her courage to confront others and her

directness as reasons for the audience to sympathize with Isabella.

Isabella has to be aggressive because her father refuses to take

into consideration a woman's feelings about marriage. Francisco's assumption that women are to be traded between men at the expense of their emotions results from his belief that marriage is a business exchange

between men. Francisco reassures Baltazar that he has made the right decision in marrying his daughter to him: "You, being a Man of an exact

Judgement, to her great grief, gave her to me, who best deserved her, both for my civil Behaviour, and camely Personage, d' ye understand me?"

(1.2). Francisco assumes an understanding between men that a father's

33 decision as to whom his daughter should marry will necessarily be the

correct one and that the woman's feelings are insignificant. Francisco

describes marriage as though it were a sale. The man who wants his

daughter to marry above his class "hoists up his Daughter's Top-sail,

and flaunts it away, much above her breeding; and these things make

so many break, and cause the decay of Trading" (1.2). While Francisco

sees marriage as a trade between men, Isabella believes her beauty can

obtain for her the kind of marriage she desires.

The conflict between Isabella and her father is over whether she

can escape his power. Francisco is reluctant to allow his daughter

to marry an aristocrat because he would then have to treat her with

respect, which he is reluctant to do because he believes women are

inferior: "I am for the honest Dutch way of breeding their Children, according to their Fathers Calling." He describes his daughter's marrying an aristocrat as if she were being physically elevated: "What are you better than I, forsooth, that you must be a Lady, and have your Petticoats lac'd four Stories high; wear your false Towers, and cool your self with your Spanish Fan?" (1.2). Francisco does not want her to feel s:1perior to him. Francisco calls himself the "clod of Earth" which

Isabella came from, and to which "she must return again, for she's to be married to a Citizen this Morning" (3.2). Isabella believes that rank makes her impervious to the laws of her father. Once married to

Guiliom, Isabella uses her title to distance her father. Immediately after the marriage ceremony, she tells her father, "pray keep your distance" and "You still forget your Duty and your Distance" (5.1).

Because Isabella's pride is a way of confronting her father's misogyny, she becomes more an object of pity than one of hatred.

34 Isabella's relationship with Guiliom is almost a mockery of the idea of romantic love. Guiliom's failed attempts to sound like an aristocrat by speaking poetically and his claim that he has fallen in love with her at first sight are as absurd as her declaration of love f K him. Isabella's promise to love Guiliom even if he were not an aristocrat is absurd. "'Tis no respect of Honour makes her weep;/ Her

Love's the same shou'd I cry- Chimney Sweep" (4.2). Guiliom similarly vows to continue loving Isabella after her father has declared he will disinherit her. "Her Love's worth a million" (5.1), yet this is again a comic statement, because Guiliom has secured the papers which guarantr~ him Francisco's money. In romance, partners often claim their love is not dependent on money or title: Behn may be suggesting the absurdity of such statements. For any WQ~n, to learn that her future spouse is actually a chimney sweeper would be upsetting. Behn's sympathy for her is also apparent in the absurdity of the situation. What is comic here is the way the two characters pretend to not be concerned with ftrrthering their personal interests, when that is all they are concerned with.

In The False Count, Behn portrays a society dominated by men.

The play itself seems to be told from a masculine point of view; it begins and ends with the male voice. Duffy calls The False Count Behn's

"clearest statement about both money and class" (205), because a chimney sweep "is better than a proud beauty who derides 'th' industrious noble citizens"' (206). Although Duffy is critical of Isabella, Guiliom i_s just as opportunistic as Isabella, since he marries her only for her money. After Guiliom has revealed his identiy to Isabella, Antonio suggests that Guiliom should continue to disguise himself as a count,

35 because he has "v~it and good Manners to pass for a fop of fashion" (5.1); yet the play has shown Guiliom to be somewhat crass. The conclusion suggests that social mobility is easier for men than for women, and

Isabella is representative of women whose capacities for growth and expression are stunted by men. Isabella is a naive character whose failure to understand the deceit of others leaves her at the end of the play with her dreams shattered. Yet Behn appears to like Isabella more than the virtuous characters in the play. Isabella's declaration,

"I die," at the end of the play suggests that she cannot live in a world dominated by men, and her silence at the end of the play supports this.

While Clara and Julia can be subsumed by their husbands' wills because they are passive, Isabella's desire is to declare her superiority to others and to demand that she be respected. When Guiliom states that she will have to carry his "soot-basket" after him, she is terrified, not only because she cannot accept his class status, but because she does not want to follow any man.

Although this is a society run by men, Behn ultimately discredits the male point of view in this play, through showing Antonio's and Carlos' representation of reality to be frequently incorrect. Although the play is critical of Isabella, by showing that the men who are the most critical are not necessarily reliable, and by giving Isabella a somewhat tragic ending, Behn shifts sympathy to Isabella. Through Isabella's character, Behn shows that not all women accept masculine power.

36 Courtesans and Kept Women

The courtesans and kept women in Behn's comedies do not concern

themselves with marriage, since this is rarely an option open to them.

But just as Behn's other disreputable female characters resist forced

marriages which only benefit males, prostitutes must maintain economic

control over their bodies. In Behn's comedies, courtesans and kept

women who allow emotions to affect the exchange of money for sex are

merely accepting male control. Characters who value virtue show contempt

for prostitutes, but the main objection is economic: men express contempt

for women who charge for sex. The main objection to prostitution in

The Rover, for instance, is that men want women to give themselves freely.

Prostitutes do not work for men, but for themselves. They rebel against

patriarchy by refusing to allow men to control them.

While Behn's contemporaries presented prostitutes as "monstrous

expressions of our fallen state," Behn presents prostitution as an

acceptable means of self-reliance (Weber qtd. in Copeland 23). Behn

shows that prostitution allows women independence, which is not possible

once they give themselves in love and commit themselves to one man.

Their refusal to allow one man control over their sexuality is a rejection

of the patriarchal order, which forces women to be financially dependent on men. Prostitutes are afraid of love because they believe the only

real security they can hope for is attained with money. Angellica and

La Nuche in each part of The Rover are famous and wealthy courtesans who make their own decisions about relationships. While money plays

37 a part in this decision, they have ultimate control over their sexuality.

It is only when they fall in love and promise themselves to one man that they consider themselves "slaves." In each part of The Rover,

Willmore complains to each courtesan that they cannot be happy by giving more importance to love than money. His refusal to commit himself to either woman is a sign that the playwright believes each woman would have been better off withholding her love. Behn does not criticize the exchange of money for sex, but instead portrays prostitution as a means of self-reliance.

Several critics see love as an ideal for Behn and believe that prostitutes want to get out of their professions, but Behn's courtesans are proud of their fame and wealth. Elin Diamond writes about haw Behn's women are sold as commodities on the stage, including the author of the play, the play itself, and the actresses. Actresses on the stage were considered to be in the "mistress market," as often happened.

The stage itself put women into circulation. When Willmore claims to posses Angellica because he has stolen a portrait of her, Angellica is equated with the portrait, which, as a piece of the set, is equated with the theater itself, which is controlled ultimately by upper-class males. Angellica, like the actress playing her, is a commodity to be sold by the theater. Willmore's "libertine desire is upheld by patriarchal law" ( 528). Angellica attempts to escape her status as commodity by accepting Willmore's love, but she cannot because she has "no existence except in the simulations produced by the exchange economy" (537).

Diamond makes Angellica appear to be a flat character; she does not consider her development. Although Diamond claims that Angellica wants to escape commodity status, Angellica profits by being in circulation

38 because she has control over the men she sells herself to. It is only

when Angellica is tricked into falling in love that she feels she has

been exploited.

Unlike Diamond, Brown does not see Willmore as a desirable match

for Angellica, but she does believe Angellica's failure to find love

i !3 tragic: "Society operates in such a way that if this noble woman

fails to conform and attempts to substitute romantic for economic values,

slle will be broken" (49). Brown idealizes the love between Angellica

and Willmore as "one that cannot be treated as a corrmodity" ( 60). Brown

sees Angellica as attempting to break free of the limitations of

prostitution by accepting Wilmore's libertine philosophy as well as

his love, but Brown is critical of Behn for equating libertine values

with love.

Copeland, however, corrmends Angellica' s assertiveness. She compares

The Rover with the play it was based on, Killigrew's Thomaso. Angellica's

personality is different in the two plays. Killigrew's Angellica regrets

having lost her virginity (claiming she was forced into prostitution),

and she asks Thomaso to forgive her previous sins and to love her.

Behn changes the play by idealizing her libertinism and "call(ing) into

question the value of female chastity" ( 20). Behn' s Angellica becomes

a prostitute because she is proud of her beauty, and she expresses no

shame or regret over selling herself.

Antonia Fraser similarly describes prostitution as a profession in which women were not exploited: "In the late seventeenth century, what is sometimes described • • . as the oldest profession was not necessarily the most disagreeable one for a woman to adopt - provided she was able to adopt it at an economically high level" (393). The

39 mercenary behavior of prostitutes, often criticized by characters in

Behn's plays, is what allows them to remain at a higher social class,

and which keeps them from the hardships that the common street walkers

endure:

The girls who, in return for a fixed allowance, became the mistresses

of noblemen and wealthy gentlemen were nearly all women from a

well-to-do professional or merchant background whose fathers had

gone bankrupt, and who found this virtually the only way of

maintaining the standard of living to which they were accustomed

(Stone 531) .

Poverty was often the reason women became prostitutes, because most men were not interested in marriages with women who did not have money.

But by maintaining the appearance of being upper class, these women were able to attract wealthy men and charge high prices for their services.

Courtesans must avoid love, not only because they know marriage

is impossible, but because it is only by selling their bodies that they

are able to maintain their high standard of living. Angellica's statement,

"inconstancy's the sin of all Mankind, therefore I'm resolv'd that nothing

but Gold shall charm my Heart" (2.1), is shown to be correct when Willmore abandons her after she has given him her heart. Maretta, Angellica's woman, tells her, "'tis only interest that Women of our Profession ought to consider," and calls love "that general Disease of our Sex" (2.1).

Maretta knows Willmore's business is to "rifle and be gone," and curses

Angellica for giving up the business for "a No-Purchase, No-Pay

Tatterdemalion." la Nuche values money: "I'll not bate a Ducat of this Price I've set upon my self, for all the Pleasures Youth or Love can bring me." (1.1). She knows once she is old she will have nothing

40 to rely on except money. La Nuche claims that money can give her a

security which Willmore cannot: "But when I've worn out all my Youth

and Beauty, and suffer'd every ill of Poverty, I shall be compell'd

to begin the World again without a Stock to set up with •.. I'm for

a substantial Merchant in Love, who can repay the loss of Time and Beauty"

(5.1). La Nuche calls her refusal to give in to love "Prudence."

Petronella warns La Nuche to stay away from Willmore because "Poverty's

catching." (1.1).

In The City Heiress, although Wilding's kept mistress, Diana, is

in love with him, she wants him to marry a wealthy woman in order to

improve her standard of living. Diana is furious when she learns that he has no money to support her, and he tries to appease her by declaring his love. "How far will that go at the Exchange for Point? Will the

Mercer take it for current Coin?" Lussier interprets this as meaning that "her society encourages a system where individuals exchange themselves for money and power" ( 386). Although he claims women are abused by this system, Diana willingly marries her lover's uncle for his wealth.

In The Town Fop, although Betty Flauntit is kept by Sir Timothy, she sells herself at a bawdy house. Like Diana, Betty insists that her lover keep her well dressed. She complains to Sir Timothy that he is spending his money on other women: "'Tis here you spend that which shoul'd buy me Points and Petticoats whilst I go like nobody's Mistress"

(4.3). She complains about clothing not because she is vain, but because the appearance of being in a higher social class is what allows her to sell herself at higher rates. Jenny, a common prostitute, complains that Betty is "a stinking proud Flirt, who because she has a tawdry

Petticoat, I warrant you, will think her self so much above us" (4.2).

41 Mrs. Driver points out that "'tis a fine Petticoat, right Points, and

clean Garnitures, that does me Credit, and takes the Gallant, though

on a stale Woman" ( 4. 2) • Everybody' s main concern is money. "No matter

for his Handsomness, let me have him that has most Money" ( 4.1) • Money

allows Flauntit to be in a higher social class than the common prostitutes.

Willmore complains to l.a Nuche: "I have known a Woman doat on Quality,

tho he has stunk thro all his Perfumes; ••. whilst her fair Arms hug'd

the dismember'd Carcase, and swore him all Perfection, because of Quality ."

l.a Nuche responds, "But he was rich" (1.1). Because a prostitute's

social status depends on her appearance, she has to place money above

looks or emotions. Men like Willmore and Wilding, who criticize

prostitutes for placing mercenary interests before love, are in fact

attempting to talk them out of their power.

Men in Behn' s comedies assume that money is only to be exchanged

between men; women who participate in this exchange are criticized.

Sullivan's essay on the way men impose their will on women praises

Angellica for being one of the few assertive characters in Behn's comedies:

She is "a strong, independent woman" who runs "her own 'business,'

• with an iron hand" ( 344) • Although Sullivan's essay does not develop the idea of Angellica as running a business, the plays make

it clear that the women are in control of what they sell, as the courtesans have control over whom they have sex with and how much they charge.

l.a Nuche tells Willmore, "There's your eternal Quarrel with our Sex,

'twere a fine Trade indeed to keep a Shop and give your Ware for Love."

V'Jhen l.a Nuche asks her lover, Beaumond, "And is a Whore a thing so much despis'd?" Beaumond responds in economic terms. "Those Bills of Love the oftner paid and drawn, make Women better merchants than Lovers. "

42 For l.a Nuche, prostitution is "the better Trade," because she is in control of the transactions (5.1). But this control is the reason the male characters resent courtesans.

In The Rover, the source of Blunt's anger is that women use sex to benefit themselves, instead of allowing themselves to be controlled by men. Blunt is determined to hate all women after Lucetta tricks him into undressing in her chamber and then has her gallant throw him out, keeping his clothing and his money . He becomes determined to abuse the next woman he encounters, because what he cannot get for free, he will take by force: "In order for the duped Blunt to regain his manly authority, he attacks a woman" (Hutner 110). Blunt's attempted rape of Florinda reassures him that men are ultimately in control. He believes, like Willmore, that men should control economic exchanges and that women should be controlled by men. "When did you ever hear of an honest Woman that took a Man's Mony?" (1.2). Blunt believes female honesty depends on women being like corrmodities instead of like "merchants." He is too proud to pay money for Angellica: "How! to be sold! Nay then I have nothing to say to her" (2.1). Blunt is horrified to hear that women are sold in Italy. When Willmore asks Blunt if he gave Lucetta anything, Blunt laughs, because, "She's a Person of Quality ••• dost think such Creatures are to be bought?" (2.1). Blunt's disapproval of women accepting money represents his belief in women's powerlessness, which is exactly what made him so easily manipulated by Lucetta.

~Villrnore complains to both courtesans that love is more important than money, yet he is only concerned with the use he can make of women.

He tells Ariadne, "You women have all a certain Jargon, or Gibberish, peculiar to your selves .•• which in plain Terms signify ready Money,

43 by way of Fine before Entrance." (2.1). He insists that Angellica abandon

"this Baseness" of prostitution because she has "set such a price on

Sin •.• whilst that which is Love's due is meanly barter'd for" (2.2).

He likewise asks Angellica to "throw off this Pride, this Enemy to Bliss,

And shew the Power of Love" (2.2), and criticizes La Nuche's pride in her appearance and in the wealth she has achieved as a courtesan: "All this Cunning's for a little mercenary Gain - fine Clothes, perhaps some

Jewels t(X), whilst all the Finery cannot hide the Whore! " ( 1.1) . When

La Nuche tells Willmore that she prefers her pearls and pendants to his love, he trivializes money. "Deal on for Trash- and barter all thy Joys of Life for Baubles" (5.1). Although Willmore argues that love is more important than money, he is not concerned with the courtesans' feelings as individuals, but with his pleasure: "One hour of right-dovm

Love,/ Is worth an Age of living dully on:/ What is't to be adorn'd and shine with Gold,/ Drest like a God, but never know the Pleasure?"

(5.1). Although Willmore convinces the courtesans of his love, Behn is ultimately unsympathetic towards Willmore's arguments, as she shows him to be deceitful.

Willmore uses the ideal of love to convince Angellica and La Nuche to have sex with him, but he eventually shows his contempt for each woman. Willmore abandons Angellica to rnarry Hellena. When Angellica complains to him that all men are inconstant, he does not deny it.

"It is a barbarous Custom, which I will scorn to defend in our Sex, and do despise in yours" (5.1). He expresses hatred towards prostitution when he confuses La Nuche for another woman. His statement: "I hope you take me for a civiler Person, than to throw my self away on Whores,"

(5.3) indicates that he sees prostitutes as socially inferior. Willmore

44 expresses contempt not only for the prostitutes, but also for his deceased wife, when he laments his marriage: "Such a Fool I was in my dull Days of Constancy, but I am now for Change ••• Variety is the Soul of

Pleasure" (1.1). When \villmore recounts how Hellena died after a month of marriage, the stage directions indicate it is done "With a sham

Sadness." She died when they were out to sea, during a storm, and he has spent most of her fortune at the Court in Brussels. The strange circumstances of her death and Willmore's apparent apathy appear to suggest that he had something to do with her death. Thus, while Willmore is proficient in speaking the language of love and in convincing women of his love, he is apparently concerned only with the use he can make of women.

Some critics interpret Willmore's rejection of Angellica as due to some inadequacy on her part, but this rejection only shows that

Angellica was correct at the beginning of the play when she claimed to fear love. Hutner claims that "male desire holds her fixed in her oppressed role as courtesan" because Willmore leaves her (108). Todd calls her a "social and moral failure" because the use of the portrait to advertise herself is "conscious, blatant, unfeminine, and professional."

Although Todd claims "the plot punishes" Angellica's "artifice" (1),

Angellica knows at the beginning that love will only harm her. The plot is resolved according to Angellica's predictions. Angellica insists

Willmore's "edifying doctrine" will not affect her because she knov,rs that men care more about money than love. She points out that when a woman is in love with a man, if her fortune is not large enough, he will "basely leave her, tho she languish" (2.1). Angellica tells Willmore about Hellena' s fortune, and this does make him determined to conguer

45 her. La Nuche is also aware of Willmore's inability to be faithful.

"You have a swinging Stomach to Variety" (1.1). Throughout the play,

Willmore switches between his attentions to Ariadne, the wealthy virgin, and La Nuche. Because Willmore is so unreliable, it is questionable whether any woman would profit from his company. Behn' s portrayal of

Willmore as selfish and deceitful shows that Angellica and La Nuche should have persisted with the fear of love that they started out with in the play.

Behn' s ovm distrust of love is emphasized in the way she compares it to slavery. La Nuche tells Ariadne, "My Business is only to be belov'd not to love; I leave that Slavery for you Women of Quality" (4.1).

Willmore claims Angellica's love will make him a slave. Instead, Angellica is enslaved, as when she confronts him after he has abandoned her:

"I was a Slave - Yet still had been content to' ve v1orn my Chains, vJorn

'em with Vanity and Joy for ever, Hadst thou not broke those Vows" (5.1).

She believed before she gave her heart to him that she was capable of conquering any man even if she had not known him: "I shou'd have thought all Men were born my Slaves; And worn my Pow'r like Lightning in my

Eyes, To have destroy'd at Pleasure when offended." (5.1). Her power was her pride, which she has lost by giving in to his love.

Behn's sympathy towards courtesans and kept women is apparent because she portrays the characters who criticize them as deceitful and self-interested. The courtesans are shown to be secure as long as they persist in their profession. It is important to courtesans and kept women that they maintain the appearance of being upper class because this distinguishes them from common prostitutes and allows them to continue asking high prices. The male characters who disapprove of their behavior

46 d i.sapprove of their economic pov1er. Diamond is correct in claimining that Willmore represents the patriarchal order. The libertine values which Willmore represents are merely a way for him to use women to his ovm advantage, without having to give anything in return.

47 Conclusion

While other Restoration playwrights represent femininity as passive,

&~hn depicts women as assertive and aggressive. Behn uses disreputable female characters to raise issues of money, class, and sex. While reputable characters in Behn's comedies represent love as an ideal, disreputable female characters suggest that the idea of love is dependent upon social and econonuc factors. Unlike her contemporaries, Behn does not idealize love. One conventional source of humor in Behn's plays is the way so many forces keep the lovers apart, yet often through sheer chance, they avoid mishap and are united at the end of the play. Behn's disreputable female characters usually do not have such luck; thus, they provide a source of realism in the plays.

Behn is using disreputable female characters for satiric purposes.

By making them appear sympathetic to the audience, she forces the audience to critique the society presented on the stage. By making her audience question whether the characters typical in comedy are correct in criticizing the disreputable female characters, she makes her audience question the values of the so-called norm. Behn only wants to make the audience question the situation; she does not directly attack.

In this way, Behn can successfully express her ideas about femininity by using the traditionally masculine medium of comedy.

After her death, Behn's writings were ignored or criticized because many accused her writings of being bawdy. The type of women's writing that became popular after the Restoration was very different from Behn's.

48 After the Restoration, female writers idealized virtuous female characters.

Because Behn did not do so, but instead portrayed all types of women and showed female assertiveness to be more important than virtue, her reputation suffered. Although Behn attempted to make Restoration audiences accept her portrayal of disreputable women on stage by having other characters voice their disagreements with them, later audiences could not accept her realistic portrayal of gender and class. Although Margaret

Ezell claims that fiction and plays cannot indicate popular attitudes or reveal information about a society, in Behn's case, the contrast between the acceptance of her plays at the beginning of her career as a writer and the rejection of her plays as lewd after her death, is a sign that attitudes about women's roles in society were changing.

~fuile Behn depicts women who insist on control over themselves, their money, and their social status, female writers of the early eightee!l i-.h century idealized romantic love and thus created passive fenBle characters, who often accepted male desires at the expense of their O\vn interests.

The acceptance of Behn's plays show that aggressive women were able to rebel against patriarchy and refuse to accept passive roles, bi1t this changed during her life as audiences began to demand to see only the ideal on the stage, just as they insisted on seeing only ideal virtue in women. Behn's comedies are in a sense an argument against seeing fenlinine virtue and chastity as an ideal.

49 WORKS CITED

Behn, Aphra. Works of Aphra Behn. 6 vols. Ed. Montague Summers. New

York: Phaeton, 1967.

Brown, Laura. English Dramatic Fom, 1660-1760: An Essay in Generic

History. New Haven: Yale UP, 1981.

Bullough, Vern and Bonnie Bullough. Women and Prostitution: A Social

History. New York: Prometheus, 1987.

carlson, Susan. Wcmen and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical

Tradition. Ann Aroor: U of Michigan P, 1991.

Coakley, Jean A. Aphra Behn's The Luckey Chance (1687): A Critical

Edition. New York: Garland, 1987.

Copeland, Nancy. "'Once a whore and ever'? Whore and Virgin in The

Rover and its Antecedents." Restoration: Studies in English Literary

Culture 1660-1700 16.1 (1992): 20-27.

Defoe, Daniel. "Sane Considerations UPJn Street-Walkers with a Pro_EX)sal

for lessening the present Number of them." Jones 69-72.

50 Diamond, Elin. "Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn' s The Rover." Elli

56.3 (1989): 519-541.

Duffy, Maureen. The Passionate Shepherdess: Aphra Behn 1640-89. London:

Jonathan Cape, 1977.

Ezell, Margaret J. M. The Patriarch's Wife: Literary Evidence and

the History of the Family. Chapel Hill: U of N. Carolina P, 1987.

Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. 1957. Princeton:

Princeton UP, 1971.

Gallagher, Catherine. "Who Was That Masked Woman? The Prostitute and

the Playwright in the Comedies of Aphra Behn." Hutner 65-85.

Gardiner, Judith Kegan. "Aphra Behn: Sexuality and Self-Respect."

Women's Studies 7 (1980): 67-78.

Gareau, Angeline. Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra

Behn. New York: Dial, 1980.

Hersey, William R. A Critical Old-Spelling Edition of Aphra Behn's

The City Heiress. New York: Garland, 1987.

51 Hume, Robert D. The Rakish Stage: Studies in English Drama, 1660-1800.

Carbondale, Southern Illinois UP, 1983.

Hutner, Heidi, ed. Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism,

Charlottesville: UP of Virginia, 1993.

"Revisioning the Female Body: Aphra Behn' s The Rover, Parts

I and II." Hutner 102-120.

Jones, Vivien, ed. Women in the Eighteenth Century: Constructions

of Femininity. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Kavenik, Frances M. "Aphra Behn: The Playwright as 'Breeches Part.'"

Schofield 177-92.

Kronenberger, louis. The Thread of laughter: Chapters on English Stage

Comedy from Jonson to .Maugham. New York: Knopf, 1952.

Kubek, Elizabeth Bennett. "'Night Mares of the Commonwealth': Royalist

Passion and Female Ambition in Aphra Behn' s The Roundheads. "

Restoration: Studies in Enlgish Literary Culture 1660-1700

17.2 (1993): 88-103.

Lussier, .Mark. " 'The Vile Merchandize of Fortune' : Women, Econany,

and Desire in Aphra Behn." Women's Studies 18 (1991): 379-393.

52 Mandeville, Bernard. "A Modest Defence of Public Stews: or, an Essay

upon Whoring." Jones 64-69.

Munns, Jessica. " ' I By A Double Right Thy Bounties Claim' : Aphra Behn

and Sexual Space." Schofield 193-209.

Prescott, Anne. "The Dramatic Works of Aphra Behn: A Comparison/Contrast

of her Views of vkxnen and their Interaction with Restoration Society

with that of her Male Contemporaries." DAI 53 (1992): 507A. City

U of New York.

Savile, George, Marquis of Halifax. "The lady's New-Year's Gift: or,

Advice to a Daughter." Jones 17-22.

Schofield, Mary Anne and Cecilia Macheski, ed. Curtain calls: British

and American Women and the Theater 1660-1820. Athens: Ohio UP,

1991.

Spencer, Jane. "Deceit, Dissembling, all that's Woman": Comic Plot

and Female Action in The Feigned Courtesans." Butner 86-101.

Stone, lawrence. The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800.

New York: Harper, 1977.

Sullivan, David M. "The Female Will in Aphra Behn." Women's Studies

22.3 (1993): 335-347.

53 Taetzsch, Lynne. "Romantic love Replaces Kinship Exchange in Aphra

Behn's Restoration Drama." Restoration: Studies in English Literary

Culture 1660-1700 17.1 (1993): 30-38.

Todd, Janet. The Sign of Angellica: Women, Writing and Fiction,

1660-1800. New York: Columbia UP, 1989.

Treglown, Jeremy. "Masculine Strokes of a Feminine Pen. " Rev. of

Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Behn, by Angeline

Goreau. The Times Literary Supplement 6 Feb. 1981: 133-34.

Vernon, P. F. "Marriage of Convenience and the Moral Code of Restoration

Comedy." Essays in Criticism 12 (1962): 370-387.

Weber, Harold. The Restoration Rake Hero: Transformations in Sexual

Understanding in Seventeenth Century England. Madison: U of

Wisconsin P, 1986.

vvilkes, vJetenhall. "A Letter of Gentell and Moral Advice to a Young

Lady." Jones 29-35.

Woodcock, George. Aphra Behn: The English Sappho. New York: Black

Rose, 1989.

54