Key quotes

Act I, Scene 1, lines 243-44; p. 200

A pox on em, and all that force Nature, and would be still what she forbids em. Affectation is her greatest
monster.
Horner says this line to Harcourt and Dorilant about the approaching Sparkish. Horner speaks in his character as
a spiteful eunuch using his strong language to exaggerate his character: speaking of poxes and monsters, he
channels the hardcore cynics disgust with the follies of those around him.

Act I, Scene 1, lines 385-87; p. 203

[M]ethinks wit is more necessary than beauty, and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome
woman agreeable without it.
Horner distances himself from Pinchwifes strategy of marrying a fool. This sentiment suggests that Horner may
not be given over entirely to cynicism, and indeed the impression that he is capable of valuing including women
for the right reasons will be substantiated later in the play, when he expresses his regret over the impending
marriage of Alithea to Sparkish rather than to Harcourt, who loves her. In addition to the light it sheds on
Horners characterization, however, this quote enunciates a tantalizing possibility for human relations, namely
that women, no less than men, might be valued primarily for the qualities of their personality and intellect, and
only secondarily for their eligibility as sexual partners. It is a possibility that is realized (perhaps) in the HarcourtAlithea relationship but, unfortunately, nowhere else in the play.
Act I, Scene 1, lines 388-90; p. 203
Tis my maxim: hes a fool that marries, but hes a greater fool that does not marry a fool. What is wit in a wife
good for, but to make a man a cuckold?
Coming directly after Horner has articulated quite an opposite sentiment, this quote is a concentrated
expression of Pinchwifes highly unattractive views on marriage and women. Because his conception of
marriage is totally self-interested, Pinchwifes overriding anxiety is not for his wifes happiness but for her
abstention from adultery. His opinion that wit in a wife is good for nothing but mischief bespeaks a basic
contempt for women and indicates that he subscribes to the view, common among the husbands in the play,
that wives are not companions and equals but simply long-term prostitutes.
Act II, Scene 1, lines 342-43; p. 214
Indeed, as the world goes, I wonder there are no more jealous, since wives are so neglected.
Lady Fidget, discoursing on husbands jealousy with the rest of the virtuous gang, voices a not unreasonable
complaint: women who receive no attention or affection from their husbands are likely to seek it elsewhereso
if husbands feel they have cause to be jealous of their wives, they must bear some of the blame for it
themselves. Coming from Lady Fidget, this complaint has an interesting resonance: on the one hand, her
marriage would seem to be Exhibit A in support of this observation, as Sir Jaspers indifference to her creates
the conditions for her dalliance with Horner; on the other hand, Wycherley certainly does not go out of his way
to generate sympathy for Lady Fidget, and most readers will probably feel that her behaviour is hardly less
selfish than her husbands.

Act IV, Scene 3, lines 20-23; p. 249

[Y]our bigots in honour are just like those in religion: they fear the eye of the world more than the eye of
heaven, and think there is no virtue but railing at vice, and no sin but giving scandal.
In this remark to The Quack, Horner skewers the respectable ladies whose behavior amongst themselves, which
he has been privileged recently to witness, diverges so sharply from their behavior before the rest of the world.
The epigrammatic quality of this remark has led to its being one of the most quoted passages in the play, and
indeed it captures one of the plays great themeshypocrisyadmirably. Perhaps more interesting than the
content of the quote, however, is its context: Horner dispenses his satiric insight, one of the fruits of his ruse, not
to the great world or even to his close friends, but to The Quack, a factotum whom he despises. It is a measure
of the lonely course to which Horners sexual and satirical impulses have committed him, that his most cutting
commentary has no worthy onstage audience.
Act V, Scene 4, line 390; p. 280
Women and Fortune are truest still to those that trust em.
Near the end of the play, Alethea utters a fine-sounding epigram, and most readers will feel that, due to her
intelligence and her demonstrated willingness to learn and change, she has earned the right to make this
resonant pronouncement. Context, however, may undercut her somewhat. The action of the play has shown
that not all forms of trust are admirable: Sir Jasper, like Sparkish in an earlier phase, has displayed excessive trust
arising from self-centeredness, and in both cases this negative form of trust has led to the defection of the lady
in the case. Worse, the action of the plays final scene has brought about a restoration of that form of trust
which is really just cynical obliviousness: in agreeing to believe once more in Horners clearly bogus impotence
for the sake of everyones reputation, the assembled company affirm the cynical belief that a transgression is not
a transgression until it is acknowledged publicly.

Act II, Scene 1, lines 459-67; p. 217

Sir Jasper: What avoid the sweet society of womankind? That sweet, soft, gentle, tame, noble creature
woman, made for mans companion
Horner: So is that soft, gentle, tame, and more noble creature a spaniel, and has all their trickscan fawn, lie
down, suffer beating and fawn the more; barks at your friends, when they come to see you; makes your bed
hard, gives you fleas, and the mange sometimes. And all the difference is, the spaniels the more faithful
animal, and fawns but upon one master.
This exchange between Horner and Sir Jasper is a good example both of Horners aptitude for his chosen role of
impotent misanthrope and of his ability, as a satirist, to draw out the flaws and meannesses of others. Horners
comparison of women to dogs is vividly nasty, as is the single point on which he will allow that the two species
contrast. More subtle, however, is Horners implicit comment on the values of Sir Jasper: in pointing out that Sir
Jaspers complimentary description could describe a spaniel as well as a human female, Horner indicates that
the only virtues Sir Jasper can appreciate in women are insipid virtues, attributes that tend to make women
submissive and self-effacing. If woman is indeed as Sir Jasper portrays her, then she really is made for mans
companion: she is so much assimilated to his wants as to be practically an extension of him, and he need not
consider her as a person in her own right. Just such a neglectful, dehumanizing concept of women is of course
very much apparent in Sir Jaspers interactions with his own wife.
Act III, Scene 2, lines 342-46; p. 232
I love to be envied, and would not marry a wife that I alone could love. I love to have rivals in a wife; they
make her seem to a man still but as a kept mistress.
This quote encapsulates nicely the moral idiocy of Sparkish. His resistance to romantic jealousy is simply
perverse: that his wife should love him is less important to him than that other men should see him as the lord
and master of an attractive woman. Moreover, Sparkishs habit of avowing such repulsive attitudes reveals him
to be as stupid socially as he is morally. One of the tenets of fashionable libertinism in the Restoration was that
marriage was a burden and an inferior state to unmarried promiscuity; accordingly, in seeking to model himself
on the wits of his acquaintance, Sparkish openly proclaims a disdain for marriage and a preference for illicit
relations. No truly witty libertine, however, would fail to leave his misogynistic sentiments with verbal
cleverness: whereas Horner or Dorilant might harbour as deplorable views of women, they would never state
them so crudely. In taking the direct route to misogyny and cynicism, Sparkish misses the point and tries too
hard, demonstrating that his personality has literally no redeeming features, either of the moral sort or of the
intellectual.
Act IV, Scene 1, lines 30-34; p. 239
But what a devil is this honour? Tis sure a disease in the head, like the megrim, or falling-sickness, that always
hurries people away to do themselves mischief. Men lose their lives by it; women whats dearer to em, their
love, the life of life.
Lucy speaks these lines to her mistress Alethea in an effort to talk some sense into her regarding the relative
merits of Harcourt and Sparkish. Aletheas determination to remain with Sparkish, whom she has come to
regard with contempt, derives largely from her devotion to her own honor: she will not be seen to break her
word to a man she has agreed to marry. Lucy points out, however, that there are more important things in the
world than honor and that a sense of honor that requires the sacrifice of love and life has become pathological.
As it turns out, Aletheas sense of honor, while not as shallow as that of Lady Fidget, nevertheless has tended to
place too much emphasis on what other people think of her; consequently, her moral development will consist
largely of her coming to understand that there is nothing dishonorable, if honor means anything, about
abandoning a foolish and selfish man and marrying a decent and lovable one instead.