Wives, Courtesans, and the Economics of Love in Jacobean City Comedy

Abstract

There is, of course, nothing startling about the coupling of love and money on the stage. Marriage-seekers in dramatic comedy have always sought wealth as well the dowries of Glycerie in Terence's The Woman of Andros, of Millamant in Congreve's The Way of the World, and of Barbara Undershaft in Shaw's Major Barbara, for example, all figure prominently in the action of those plays, and are part of the conventions of the form. But the persistence with which certain Stuart playwrights dwelt upon economic theory and practice transcends those conventions, and makes their plays unique commentaries upon the economic life of the society which produced them. It is not necessary to believe, as some scholars do, that such writers as Marston, Dekker, Heywood, Jonson, and Middleton intended to depict, or did in fact depict, anything so majestic as The Rise of Capitalism itself. We need only acknowledge that many of the participants in that vast and ponderous upheaval substantial merchants, small shopkeepers, impoverished gentlemen, adventurers and entrepreneurs are portrayed with some realism in city comedies, and almost nowhere else. And though Brian Gibbons is correct in maintaining that these works not present in any useful sense 'a keen analysis in economic terms' ... of the actual conditions of the times,2 it is well to keep in mind the fact that, if the plays do not analyze economic