The country wife: wycherley’s view towards marriage of convenience in the restoration age of England (genetic structuralism approach)

Oleh :
Dwi Erika Mufdiyati - C0301023 - Fak. Sastra dan Seni Rupa

ABSTRACT The Country wife is one of Wycherley’s plays that talks about marriage of convenience. The researcher has formulated three research questions as follows: (1) How is marriage of convenience represented in William Wycherley’s The Country Wife? (2) How is the society’s view towards marriage of convenience in the Restoration age of England as represented in The Country Wife? (3) How does William Wycherley view marriage of convenience as represented in The Country Wife? In order to answer the questions, the researcher uses Genetic Structuralism approach by Lucien Goldmann to analyze The Country Wife, because genetic structuralism is used to find the worldview of the author toward his work. There are three aspects to be correlated in genetic structuralism, i.e. the play itself, biography of the playwright, and the social condition when the work is created. There are three findings in this research: First, marriage of convenience commonly exists in the upper classes society. The couple whose marriage is a marriage of convenience made up their unhappiness in their marriage life by having pleasures outside. Second, the researcher identifies there are two categories of people related to marriage of convenience. First, the upper classes society who agreed on and performed marriage of convenience. Marriage is only a way to get wealth and social status. Second, the lower classes society who believes that marriage should be based upon love, and that social status and wealth were considered unimportant. Third, the researcher finds that William Wycherley presented marriage of convenience as the marriage type of the upper classes. Wycherley agrees on marriage of convenience, although he thinks marriage of convenience was a similar form of prostitution featuring by the parents. He performs the couple whose marriage was a marriage of convenience could not be broken by everything. It may be noted from the play that Wycherley also concerned on woman’s limited space in marriage and in the society where she belongs.