South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Language and Honor in "The Country Wife"

Author(s): David B. Morris
Source: South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Nov., 1972), pp. 3-10
Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3197360
Accessed: 18-12-2017 13:12 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

South Atlantic Modern Language Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

preserve and extend access to South Atlantic Bulletin

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 LANGUAGE AND HONOR IN "THE COUNTRY WIFE"

DAVID B. MORRIS

University of Virginia

"Honor is indeed a noble thing, and therefore the word

which signifies it, must needs be very plausible. But as a
rich and glittering garment may be cast over a rotten,
fashionably diseased body, so an illustrious, commending
word, may be put upon a vile and an ugly thing; for words
are but the garment, the loose garment of things; and so
may easily be put off and on, according to the humour
of him who bestows them."-Robert South

The Country Wife is a play about honor. The same could be

said of much seventeenth-century drama. C. L. Barber's study The
Idea of Honor in the English Drama 1591-1700 (G6teborg, 1957)
reveals that, especially after 1660, the word "honor" was continually
on the lips of theatrical characters. Audiences apparently relished
the endless conflicts between love and honor in the new heroic
plays; and even in less lofty contexts, the familiar theme maintained
its power to delight. Samuel Pepys writes for November 2, 1667:
"After dinner my wife and Willett and I to the King's playhouse,
and there saw 'Henry the Fourth:' and contrary to expectation,
was pleased in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of
Falstaffe's speech about 'What is Honour?' "1 Of the many issues
raised by Shakespeare's play relevant to Restoration life, it is
significant that Pepys should be most struck by a discussion of the
nature of honor.

Oddly enough, Wycherley's treatment of honor in The Country

Wife has evoked only casual interest, although Barber surely chal-
lenges further inquiry when he remarks, "In the 206 plays studied,
I have found 4,847 examples of honour as a noun, the range in
single plays being from 0 (Midsummer Night's Dream) to 86 (The
Country Wife) ."2 Such figures prove nothing; they do, however,
suggest that the obsession of Wycherley's characters betrays his own
thematic interests. They also suggest that the word "honor" con-
veyed a complex range of values, reflecting the diversities among
Anglican and Dissenter, aristocrat and citizen, royalist and republi-
can, rake and pilgrim. Although in p)ractice the term assumed
various shades of meaning, Wycherley could, nevertheless, expect
that his audience shared a similar view of what honor should be.
Schooled by classical moralists and by Christian divines, Wych-
erley's audiences would have agreed with Robert South that honor

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 4 Country Wife

is "the reflection of a man's own actio

face of all about him, and thence rebound
doubtless would have accepted also Wyche
English titles of honor originally celebra
virtue.4 As South put it, "Virtue and ho
companions, that the heathens would adm
of honour, who did not pass to it thro
This commonplace, echoed by Addison
next generation, provides Wycherley wi
he measures the words and actions of his characters-most of whom
associate honor with outward reputation alone. Lacking the sub-
stance of virtue, their honor resides only in words and appearances,
the fashionable garments of Vanity Fair.
A glance at the minor characters of Wycherley's play reveals
how thoroughly they have separated their sense of honor from
virtuous action. By "honor" Sparkish refers only to his reputation
as a town wit. Because he believes that jealousy dishonors a wit,
he wilfully ignores even the most overt and apparently compromis-
ing assaults upon the affections of his fiancee, Alithea. Pinchwife,
at the opposite extreme of folly, associates his honor solely with
the chastity of his wife. Disregarding the virtue of his own conduct,
he will (unlike Sparkish) endure any amount of private insult
but bristles with the fear of dishonor whenever he thinks Mar-
jorie's virtue is in danger. But Lady Fidget and her circle, "women
of honor and reputation,"6 embody most vividly the town's perverted
notions. In public they repeat the word "honor" with calculated
regularity, implying their absolute probity. In private, all covet
the pleasures of illicit sex. Perhaps the most depraved scene of
the play finds the ladies arguing whether "the crime against our
honor is the same with a man of quality" as with "little inconsider-
able fellows." (II. i. 368-70) So entirely have they equated honor
with mere reputation that even adultery, provided the other party
is a man of no social status, can seem perfectly consistent with an
exalted affectation of virtue.
Into this deceived and deceiving world, Wycherley thrusts two
characters whose presence is the spring of action and who possess
quite different attitudes toward honor. Marjorie comes to London
with a mind so unformed as to seem almost innocent. Her unaffected
simplicity and unconcern with all the worldly mechanics of honor
make her immediately attractive. She is a kind of Restoration Eve,
uninitiated into virtue, whose natural curiosity and healthy passions
are thwarted by Pinchwife's jealous temper. Although her town
education is a fall into forbidden knowledge, she is nevertheless a
sympathetic focus of interest: a composite of beauty, cunning,

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 South Atlantic Bulletin 5

wonder, appetite, and illogic-dazzlingly fe

her determined, inspired simplicity, for t
Horner.

Horner in many ways is Marjorie's opposite. She arrives from

the country, Horner from France. She brings a rural innocence,
Horner an urbane cynicism. Marjorie knows nothing of honor be
cause she knows nothing of virtue, Horner rejects honor because
he rejects virtue. Yet he, too, is somewhat attractive. A complex
intelligence, one aspect of the traditional guller, marks him
extraordinary, distinguishes him from the society which he con
fronts. The world's "bigots in honor" (IV.iii.21-22) cannot deceive
him, and in fact he bases his scheme of multiple seduction on th
knowledge that "women of honor ... are only chary of their reput
tions, not their persons. .. ... (I. i. 153-54) Just as Marjorie wi
us initially because she refuses to mask her feelings, a hatred of
social pretense partly redeems Horner. "Affection," he declares, "i
[Nature's] greatest monster." (I.i.249) The selfishness of his
motives, however, while it never dulls our interest surely preclud
our sympathy. One who sincerely despised affectation should no
be so quick to act a part.
It is Horner's cold self-knowledge as well as his eye for fraud,
which permits him to manipulate the duplicity of those aroun
him. He is an outsider who has rejected both the false honor of me
reputation and the true honor of virtue. His total liberation from
conventional standards suggests that ultimately he accepts th
Hobbesian notion that the only real honor is power.7 In the draw
ing-room world of Restoration comedy, sexual power is the reality
he pursues shrewdly disguised behind the illusion of impotenc
This strategem is doubly effective because it blinds the husbands
it simultaneously exploits the ladies' already corrupted notions o
honor. "But, poor gentleman," Lady Fidget whispers upon discover
ing his ruse, "could you be so generous, so truly a man of honor,
for the sakes of us women of honor, to cause yourself to be reported
no man?" (II.i.525-27) Lady Fidget's mysterious use of "honor
ought to confuse an audience, at least momentarily, as do oth
ambiguous usages throughout the play. This confusion Wycherley
evokes on purpose, for its raises questions which transcend particul
contexts. Specifically, the continual equivocations with "honor" sug
gest that he intended to evoke in the minds of the audience a relat
but more fundamental issue which obsessed his age: the natur
of language itself as a reflection of civilized values.
Seventeenth-century writers frequently argued that language and
civilization were intricately connected. As Hobbes asserted, speech
is "the most noble and profitable invention of all other . . with-

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 6 Country Wife

out which, there had been amongst men

nor society, nor Contract, nor Peace, no m
Bears, and Wolves."' Language, for Hobbe
the warring state of nature, just as tradi
as a mark of human dignity, distinguish
Perhaps Locke best summarized the thou

speech
bond "the
was great Bond
tenuous, since that holds Society
corruptions of la
ened to sever the social union. While
divorce between words and things in the
such as South echoed the refrain of Isaiah: "Woe unto them that
call evil good, and good evil." (5:20) What South called "the
fatal Imposture and Force of Words"'' was recognized to be a
main symptom of moral decay and a source of disorder in th
state. As Archbishop Tillotson predicted, when language and actio
are dissociated, when fraud, perjury, and breach of trust become
the rule, then "human societies would presently fly in pieces and
men would necessarily fall into a state of war.""
The Country Wife presents a world of corrupted language in
which fraud, perjury, and breach of trust have become the norma-
tive condition of mankind. By choosing honor as a vehicle for ex-
posing this world, Wycherley focused his satire upon a concept cen
tral to the nature both of language and of civilization. The integrit
required of the philosopher in fixing the definiton of terms paralle
the necessity of personal honor in socal relationships. Casual speech
itself reflects the close link between language and honor-since to
pledge one's honor is to give one's "word." Without the guarantee
or assumption of honor, no man can trust the words used by an-
other. Conversely, ambiguous language is a fundamental tool of the
dishonorable and the false. In The Country Wife words mean virtu
ally whatever the speaker pleases; language itself has become the
ultimate form of appearance. It is a comic world, of course, a
Wycherley presents it. But it is also disquieting, even sombre at
times, for nearly every scene reinforces the disintegration betwee
language and honor. Two scenes deserve particular attention be
cause of their importance in widening the scope of Wycherley
satire beyond the ridicule of individual characters. The first is th
infamous "china" scene, and the second the play's inconclusive
conclusion.
The "china" scene epitomizes a world in which ambiguous
language expresses a radical breakdown of civilized values. Thus
Horner and Lady Fidget, to secure their liaison, develop a code to
which they alone have the key. As Hobbes would describe it, they
"use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than that they

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 South Atlantic Bulletin 7

are ordained for. ...' 12 Honor, as they u

metaphor for a cluster of ideas all associat
Horner pledges his "word" (II.i.534) to La
able lover, she immediately signals her und
by continuing the metaphor. "I have so stron
dear, dear, noble sir, that I'd forfeit mine
dear sir." (II.i.540-42) Since there are other
gauge permits secrecy, while for Lady Fidg
of adultery is veiled in the decorous illusion
Lady Fidget and Horner continue their c
she arrives at his quarters. "Well, Horner,"
a woman of honor? You see I'm as good as
Lady Fidget is not simply claiming the vir
pointments; she is employing, like the c
novel of manners, a private language which
Horner have already reached an understand
propriately replies in the same oblique idio
madam, I'll not be behindhand with you
good as my word too, if you please but to
room." (IV.iii.37-39) Yet when they retir
to the reality behind their talk of honor, th
company-forcing Lady Fidget to dissemble
Horner. Luckily seizing upon a china vessel
been pursuing her passion for ceramics, a passi
ladies, who begin clamoring for china of t
husband, Sir Jasper, must at this point be
theatre who does not perceive that "china"
veiled metaphor for Horner's sexual ability
complex than the characters themselves und
"China" not only conveys the bawdy m
Horner and Lady Fidget but also serves the
playwright. While the characters employ
deals in emblem. The china vessel held b
begin to assume added meaning in the m
the scene is mercilessly prolonged. China
the outward beauty and fragile virginity o
vessel displayed by Lady Fidget is a kind of
tional significance betrayed by the gross
possessor. In addition, the audience might a
a fitting emblem for honor itself-since
once precious, attractive, and frail. "Nothin
honour," Isaac Barrow instructed the age; "ev
against it is able to break it, and therefore
we cannot preserve it."'14 Fresh from her w

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 8 Country Wife

Fidget brazenly maintains an outward ap

her efforts, however, the piece of ceram
metaphor she employs, vividly reveals t
tween fair appearances and foul realities
play.
The growing awareness that we are viewing a world in which
the abuses of language mirror significant corruptions of civilized
values is brilliantly confirmed in the play's inconclusive conclusion.
Our hopes for a final clarifying and resolving action suddenly in-
tensify when Marjorie, disguised in Alithea's clothes, is discovered
in Horner's apartments. The discovery, which compromises the real
honor of Alithea, pits Horner against Harcourt-the former defend-
ing false virtue, the latter true:
Har: Horner, I must now be concerned for this lady's
[Alithea's] honor.
Hor: And I must be concerned for a lady's honor too.
Har: This lady [Alithea] has her honor, and I will protect
it.

Hor: My lady has not her honor, but has given it me to

keep, and I will preserve it. (V.iv.253-58)
The exchange occurs in asides, but the conflict could well explode
publicly. Only the familiar recourse to ambiguous language allows
Horner to confuse Harcourt momentarily and to forestall an im-
mediate exposure. Thus, while Harcourt uses words truly, Horner
plays with various shades of definition, creating the accurate but
paradoxical implication that he is concerned for the honor (reputa-
tion) of a woman without honor (virtue). To these plotted equivoca-
tions, Harcourt replies, "I understand you not," and Horner for
once reveals his true motives by adding, "I would not have you."
(V.iv.259-60) Verbal duplicity is the only power able to sustain
the general structure of delusion, and, significantly, Horner's mis-
use of language sets the pattern for general irresolution.
The threat of universal exposure is countered by a dizzying
combination of fraud, ambiguity, and lies-confirming Ben Jon-
son's dictum: "Wheresoever manners and fashions are corrupted,
Language is. It imitates the publicke riot."" Lucy's declaration to
Pinchwife that Marjorie is "innocent" contains a germ of truth only
if innocence is defined, as it sometimes is in the play, as silliness,
simplicity, or ignorance. Horner's accomplice the Quack assures Sir
Jasper upon the "word" of a physician that Horner is harmless;
as the Quack is no true physician, however, his oath means nothing.
Lady Fidget predictably protests her own virtue. "Upon my honor,
sir," she begins, but ultimately Horner's patent falsehood and

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 South Atlantic Bulletin 9

Marjorie's decision to "tell more lies" assure

ance. Nothing really happens; the invisibl
Instead of seeing the comic triumph of orde
experiences merely the appearance of order.
with an image of disorder suspended, well f
symmetry of dancing cuckolds.
Although critics such as L. C. Knights ma
ness of Wycherley's intentions, The Country
out the lashing wit of Restoration satire. Wy
Swift's, is to unmask the affected and th
ridicule an instrument of moral judgmen
exposure of the abuses of language and the
that by the end of the play he can achieve w
richest of satiric insights. When a puzzled
Pinchwife-who is enraged at suspecting M
Horner-the brief exchange between them r
meaning.
Sir Jasp: What's the matter? what's the matter? pray,
what's the matter, sir? I beseech you communi-
cate, sir.
Pinchwife: Why, my wife has communicated, sir, as your
wife may have done too, sir, if she knows
him, sir. (V.iv.289-92)
Communication itself, the function of language, becomes the play's
final charged metaphor for adultery and dishonor. Yet lest we des-
pair of the world which he shows us, or select the wrong means of
coping with it, Wycherley allows us to recognize in Harcourt and
Alithea the possibility of correcting folly and of living honestly in
a world of appearance.
Harcourt and Alithea never rival Horner. and Marjorie as the
play's center of interest, but their unobtrusive presence is essential
to Wycherley's moral purpose. "Alithea" is Greek for "truth." But
as the play begins, Truth is literally betrothed to Folly (Sparkish).
Unable to see that she has foolishly misplaced her honor, Alithea
credits Sparkish's affected "frankness" and ignores the genuine
honesty of Frank Harcourt. Her dilemma, in fact, reflects a condi-
tion which Hobbes had discussed in Leviathan. "Seeing then that
truth consisteth in the right ordering of names in our affirmations,"
wrote Hobbes, "a man that seeketh precise truth, had need to re-
member what every name he uses stands for . . . or else he will
find himselfe entangled in words, as a bird in lime-twiggs; the
more he struggles, the more belimed."16 Throughout the play,
Wycherley represents Alithea's mistaking of appearances as an

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 10 Country Wife

entanglement in words. Harcourt, however,

concerning the differences between words
natures, signs and realities. In courting h
passion through the concrete language of g
who "never had any passion" (V.iii.66-67) fo
his own ego with empty phrases. Even when
self as his own brother, the deceit is so obv
can mistake his real intentions-again be
the surface sounds of words. Through this k
tion, Alithea finally disentangles herself fro
lacking a virtuous guide, resembles Hobbes
fast in lies. Thus, the marriage of Harcour
alternative to the sterile, unfulfilling relati
of Wycherley's characters, for whom the c
marriage-with its implication of folly corr
apply. Wycherley reserves substantial happ
and corrigible few. The pretenders to hono
merely avoiding disaster and with what Sw
possession of being well deceived.

NOTES

1. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Henry B. Wheatley (Boston, 1893

XIII, 172.
2. The Idea of Honor, p. 88.
3. Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, n. edn. (London, 1737), VI,
96.

4. "Against Pride and Ambition," in The Complete Works of William

Wycherley, ed. Montague Summers (London, 1924), IV, 145.
5. Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, VI, 95.
6. The Country Wife, ed. Thomas H. Fujimura (Lincoln, 1965), II.i.343-44.
Additional quotations will be documented within the text.
7. Leviathan . . . (London, 1690), p. 44 (I.x.).
8. Leviathan, p. 12 (I.iv) .
9. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1690), p. 251
(III,xi.1).
10. Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, II, 316. For other sermons
on the same subject, see VI, 3-120.
11. The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson . . n. edn. (Lon-
don, 1757), XI, 97.
12. Leviathan, p. 13 (I.iv).
13. See Aubrey Williams, "The 'Fall' of China and the Rape of the Lock,"
PQ, 41 (1962), 412-25.
14. The Sermons and Expository Treatises of Isaac Barrow, n. edn. (Edin-
burg, 1893), I, 476.
15. Timber, or Discoveries ... in Ben Jonson, ed. C. H. Herford and Percey
and Evelyn Simpson (Oxford, 1925-52), III, 593. Punctuation has been mod-
ernized.

16. Leviathan, p. 15 (I. iv).

This content downloaded from 210.212.129.125 on Mon, 18 Dec 2017 13:12:11 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms