While remembered primarily for Sir Martin Mar-All, Dryden wrote in his dedication of the play to the Earl of Rochester that Marriage a la Mode is “the best of my comedies.”
much of a comic element in this play that it “may more fittingly be considered among the comedies proper” (130), especially considering the happy ending of the tragic plot when true love triumphs and the rightful heir is restored to his throne. According to Derek Hughes,
Marriage a la Mode is “one of the last plays to deal with the subject of restoration until the revival of the topic during the last years of Charles’s reign” (“Heroic Drama” 205). Questions of legitimate rule (the focus of many plays in the 1660s) are still present in the dramas written and produced in the new decade, but in the serious plot of Marriage a la Mode, personal desire trumps civic responsibility as the deposed ruler chooses true love over the return of his kingdom.
Hobbesian materialism and self-interest as the basis of all human action are present in
Marriage a la Mode (as they were in The Amorous Widow), but in addition to the marital discord, extramarital sex, and forced marriages found in earlier dramas, Dryden plays with seeing Hobbes’s theory on desire as a rather practical morality with his married couples
contemplating divorce and “follow[ing] the new mode” of open marriage and partner swapping (Prologue). According to Rothstein and Kavenik, the “portrayal of women in comedy, generally as well as in matters of divorce, plainly emerges from attitudes that were not only changing but also were perceived as in flux” (13). And despite the comedy’s conservative ending, Dryden deals with sardonic portrayals of unstable identity with his comic figures depicted as courtly and his heroic characters reduced in social status, or, as in the case of Melantha (described in the Dramatis Personae as an “affected lady”), an upper-class character who aspires to be part of the courtier crowd but is clearly less qualified than her intelligent, accomplished, and witty servant, Philotis. In both comic and tragic plots, the idea of social mobility is promoted. Polydamas has usurped the throne of Sicily while Leonidas, the rightful heir, has been raised as the son of a fisherman named Hermogenes, who is really a loyal friend of the deposed king posing as a
commoner to keep Leonidas (the true heir to the throne) safe from the wrath of Polydamas. While many Restoration plays seem to accept and even promote high absolute mobility,
Marriage a la Mode implies relative social mobility; the overall structure of the imagined Sicilian court society hasn’t changed, but the probability of upward mobility (Leonidas, Hermogenes, and the maid-servant Philotis), downward mobility (Polydamas, Argaleaon [the usurper’s favorite] and Palmyra [the usurper’s daughter]) as well as horizontal mobility
(Melantha) is probable. This relative social mobility increases throughout the decade and peaks in the 1680s.
In the comic plot, Dryden’s maid character, Philotis (like his Warner in Sir Martin Mar- all) illustrates other problems in class hierarchy. During the 1670s especially, wit was among the most highly prized qualities in both men and women, “encompassing cleverness in conversation, physical actions and imagination” (Novak, “Libertinism” 58). But it is the maidservant
Philotis—not her mistress Melantha (whose social ranking would allow her to become part of the courtier crowd)—who embodies the prized attributes a la mode. Not only is Philotis more
intelligent, accomplished, and witty than her mistress, the maid exemplifies the extremely libertine themes found in 1670s sex comedies as well as the free-thinking philosophies that were part of court culture48 and associated with wits such as John Wilmot, Charles Sedley, William Wycherley, George Villiers, and George Etherege.49 For example, Philotis encourages her
mistress’s desire to have an affair with Captain Rhodophil (a married man), telling her that he’s “a fine gentleman indeed” whose abilities in singing, dancing, and writing billet-doux are talents that deserve the attentions of someone who “understands and values the French air, as your
48 R.E. Pritchard says that the court’s philosophy of libertinism was “derived from (mis)readings of Thomas
Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651), interpreted as regarding all authority—state, religious and church, family and sexual laws—as arbitrary, hypocritical and repressive of man’s natural impulses” (10).
ladyship does” (52). Melantha, who is a dunce compared to the clever maid, doesn’t catch the sarcasm in Philotis’s remarks regarding her mistress’s “desire to gain access to power [that] expresses itself by the need to learn French” and her “obsession about gaining access to the court” (Kroll 323). Witless Melantha reminds her maid that she is paid very well (with expensive articles of clothing) “for furnishing me with new [French] words for my daily conversation” (64) and reprimands her for providing only “fifteen words to serve me a whole day! Let me die, at this rate I cannot last till night” (64). Philotis reads from her list: “foible, chagrin, grimace,
embarrassé, double entendre, équivoque, éclaircissement, suite, bévue, façon, penchant, coup d’étourdi, and ridicule” (64), while Melantha practices her “postures” for the day, asking the
maid’s opinion on how well she assumes her various “looks”: PHILOTIS. Sovereignly well, madam.
MELANTHA. Sovereignly! Let me die, that’s not amiss. That word shall not be
yours. I’ll invent it and bring it up myself. My new point gorget shall be yours upon’t. Not a word of the word, I charge you.
PHILOTIS. I am dumb, madam.
MELANTHA. (Looking in her mirror.) That glance, how suits it with my face? PHILOTIS. ‘Tis so languissant.
MELANTHA. Languissant! That word shall be mine too, and my last Indian
gown thine for it. (Looks again.) That sigh?
PHILOTIS. “Twill make many a man sigh, madam. ‘Tis a mere incendiaire. MELANTHA. Take my gimp petticoat for that truth. If thou hast more of these
phrases, let me die but I could give away all my wardrobe and go naked for ‘em.
PHILOTIS. Go naked? Then you would be a Venus, madam. (64-65) The fact that the would-be courtier doesn’t catch the irony of the situation—that the maid’s wardrobe increases with each French word she utters—helps illustrate the sardonic quality of the period. And just as Prudence’s knowledge about those she serves allows her to manipulate the amorous widow in Betterton’s comedy, Philotis’s use of flattery to swindle her mistress out of her expensive apparel comes from the maid’s intelligence and wit. An alteration in the hegemony of the 1670s means that Melantha, despite her status as a lady, the mistress, and would-be
courtier, has relinquished her power over the employee because of her preoccupation with becoming a part of the debauched court. Philotis’s success in controlling her mistress (and later Palamede) is, according to Hobbes, her “Power, because it maketh reputation of Wisdome, or good fortune; which makes men either feare him, or rely on him” (Leviathan 10). Clearly Philotis is the one with power, secured by a reputation for managing her mistress and her ability to gain good fortune from Melantha and later, from both Rhodophil and Palamede.
Philotis also possesses both of Hobbes’s classifications of knowledge—that derived from the assimilation of facts and that which is the consequence of one pronouncement to another— which allows her to con Palamede. Philotis informs the courtier that Melantha’s father sent his daughter a letter “with an absolute command to dispose herself to marry you tomorrow”—a letter that arrived at the perfect moment, the maid explains to Palamede, “for it found her in an ill humour with a rival of yours that shall be nameless, about the pronunciation of a French word” (83). Telling him that she discouraged her mistress from pursuing an affair with Rhodophil by “discommend[ing] him all over: clothes, person, humor, behavior, everything” (83), Philotis begins her scam with another upper-class character:
PHILOTIS. Then I took occasion to commend your good qualities: as the
sweetness of your humor, the comeliness of your person, your good mien, your valor, but above all your liberality.
PALAMEDE. I vow to Gad I had like to have forgot that good quality in myself, if thou hadst not remembered me on’t. Here are five pieces for thee. PHILOTIS. Lord, you have the softest hand, sir! It would do a woman good to
touch it. Count Rhodophil’s is not half so soft, for I remember I felt it once when he gave me ten pieces for my New Year’s gift. (83)
Unlike Melantha, however, Palamede is fully aware of the maid’s game and uses it to his advantage:
PALAMEDE. Oh, I understand you, madam. You shall find my hand as soft again as Count Rhodophil’s. There are twenty pieces for you. The former was but a retaining fee; now I hope you’ll plead for me.
PHILOTIS. Your own merits speak enough. Be sure only to ply her with French words, and I’ll warrant you’ll do your business. Here are a list of her phrases for this day. Use ‘em to her upon all occasions and foil her at her own weapon. For she’s like one of the old Amazons, she’ll never marry except it be the man who has first conquered her.
PALAMEDE. I’ll be sure to follow your advice, but you’ll forget to further my design.
PHILOTIS. What, do you think I’ll be ungrateful? But however, if you distrust my memory, put some token on my finger to remember it by. That diamond there would do admirably.
PALAMEDE. There ‘tis and I ask your pardon heartily for calling your memory into question. I assure you I’ll trust it another time without putting you to the trouble of another token. (83)
Although he is aware of her ploy, Palamede recognizes that Philotis knows her mistress’s quirks and foibles—knowledge that allows the maid to manipulate the higher-ranking characters. Palamede follows Philotis’s directions about using French phrases, but Melantha assumes he is mocking her, causing Philotis to quickly assure her mistress that Palamede “does but
accommodate his phrase to your refined language” (85). Palamede also follows the maid’s instructions when he sings to Melantha in French. When Melantha tells Palamede that she accepts his proposal of marriage “upon condition that—when we are married, you …” Philotis swiftly interrupts to tell Palamede: “drown her voice. If she makes her French conditions, you are a slave forever” (85). Knowing her mistress as she does, the maid can aptly advise the suitor, earning his gratitude (and his riches) and therefore gaining power from the situation.
The witty, perspicacious maid is the only individually drawn character in the partner- swapping comic plot—a theme that makes the gay couples entirely interchangeable. Dryden puts both girls in breeches disguises, both meet their lovers (the other’s husband or fiancé) in the same grotto, and at end of the play, the partners switch smoothly and without fanfare. The swap- exchange-substitute-transfer activities of the upper-class couples makes them transposable, and both look at relationships as brief opportunities to satisfy desires, neatly following Hobbes’s theory that people only desire that which is unavailable to them: “by Desire, we always signifie the Absence of the object” (Leviathan 6). Interest in their partners is lost until those partners look elsewhere, then desire for that which they no longer possess is once again evoked.
Like The Amorous Widow, Marriage a la Mode ends with “at least two radically different
ideologies coexisting uneasily or with an ambivalent solution which can be interpreted in two ways: as a conventional ‘happy ever after’ ending or as a prediction of a future filled with doubts and infidelities” (Rothstein and Kavenik 124). Since changing ideologies and alterations in hegemony during the 1670s weakened traditional social mores of the previous decade, the conclusion of this comedy is certainly not conventional, and it is the maid’s power gained through knowledge that best illustrates the decline of traditional social authority. Maximillian Novak explains this phenomena with his notion of “the basic doctrines of libertinism”:
[S]ociety was merely an artificial construct. Its laws were not to be taken seriously by those who understood that human beings had been tricked into accepting them. … Since the young experienced the pleasures of the senses more fully than the old, they should ignore, as much as possible, the precepts delivered by those who could no longer experience the pleasures of life fully. Such
understanding set the believers free from the conventions of society. (55)
In a time when “old” parents arranged “suitable” marriages for their children, the only crossing of classes occurred when the middling-sort person had money and the upper-class person needed to restore a lost (or dwindling) fortune. When financial levels and social rank were about equal, there was less social mobility. Once freed from traditional conventions, however, divisions between social and economic groups of the younger set—and therefore between servants and those being served—were becoming increasingly malleable, allowing those of the upper-classes to place their confidence in the attributes and abilities of their servants, both on- and off-stage.