Love and Marriage in Restoration Comedy.
During the restoration period, drama took on a new form with the emergence of restoration comedies. The main goal of these comedies was to mock society, or in other ways lift up society for scrutiny, which could cause negative or positive results. .
Although the plots were complex and the characters very hard to keep straight, each play focused on a certain themes. One of the major themes was marriage and the game of love. However, the couples in these plays show something very dark and sinister about love and marriage. Although the endings are happy and the man usually gets the woman, we see marriages without love and love affairs throughout these plays. However, as we look at the Restoration comedies, we see how dramatically society has progressed. A dramatic change, in moral attitudes about marriage and love, has taken place.
The kinds of marriages that are satirized and condemned in restoration comedies are those based on economic or other considerations rather than love and mutual affection. In William Wycherley's "Country Wife" (1675), the marriage between Margery and Bud Pinchwife represents a hostile marriage between an old man and a young woman. Pinchwife marries Margery specifically because of her ignorance and youth since, as he asks Horner, "What is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?" (I.i). A running theme through the play is the act of cuckoldry. An old husband with a young wife only has the fear of being made a cuckold when he isn't looking and would try every possible way to avoid this happening. .
The Pinchwifes are the focal point of the play, at least as couples go and the problem with their marriage is that Mrs. Pinchwife is in love with a man named Horner. Horner runs around cuckolding all of the husbands, while he pretends to be a eunuch. He is a master at the game of sex, though emotionally he is unstable.