The Country Wife

In Scene One, Alithea asks Margery why she seems to be so gloomy, and Margery admits that she is sad because she is kept “at home like a poor lonely sullen bird in a cage” (85). She tells her sister-in-law that she never realized what she was missing until Pinchwife told her about the lives of London women. Pinchwife intervenes, accusing Alithea of “putting the town pleasures in her head, and setting her a-longing” (85). Alithea argues that Pinchwife is the one who gives her longings for life in town. Pinchwife took her to the play and is therefore the reason that she is now asking to go to the theatre again. Pinchwife exclaims that he will be happy to be rid of his sister when she marries Sparkish tomorrow night and to take his wife back to the country early the following morning.

This does not make Margery happy, and she concedes that she has been unsettled since Pinchwife told her that a man had seen her at the play and expressed his love for her. Pinchwife tells his wife that she is going to make him jealous, a feeling that has not been a part of their marriage before then.