Wives as They Were, Maids as They Are

A woman writer in 1790s England had the audacity to put marriage on trial, and made it hilariously uncomfortable. Elizabeth Inchbald, herself an actress who married poorly, understood exactly how the game was played. Her comedy of manners dissects the sacred institution of wedlock among the upper classes and finds it rotten with calculation and cold-blooded negotiation. The play follows a cast of fashionable predators circling each other at a country estate, suitors with fortunes to make, heiresses with fortunes to protect, and the wives and maids caught between security and autonomy. Every conversation is a duel, every compliment a contract term. Inchbald's wit is devastating precisely because it's precise: she doesn't rage against the system, she simply holds it up to the light and lets everyone see the rot. The title asks a question women still grapple with: is it better to be a wife with wealth but without freedom, or a maid with freedom but without security? The play refuses easy answers, offering instead the bitter pleasure of watching hypocrites exposed.