Aphra Behn's The Rover

The Business of Love:
Sex, Economics, and Politics of the Restoration in Aphra Behn’s The Rover

“Obviously, the best ingredient for guaranteeing the attention of a Restoration audience was sex. Politics was next best, but for a really surefire job, it had better be sex” (The Selected Writings of the Ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn, 15). Aphra Behn is acutely aware, however, that sex and politics are practically the same thing; a woman’s virtue determines how much she is worth socially, while a man’s virtue is determined by his social worth. In The Rover, Aphra Behn examines how this standard affects views of personal value in her society. In the parallel stories of Angellica and Blunt, Florinda and Belvile, and Hellena and Willmore, Behn tries to dispel Restoration myths concerning personal value, and hints that, through honesty, the sexes can create a kinder, more equal society.

These two characters, though never coupled in the play, have similar stories: Angellica, an expensive courtesan, has no virtue to recommend her but her beauty, while Blunt has no virtue except his wealth as lord of Essex. Both are taken for all they’re worth and left with nothing.

Blunt’s story is the more straight-forward of the two; he meets Lucetta, a thief and prostitute, who lures him in with professions of love, then dumps him literally into the sewer once he has stripped to his underclothes, and takes his belongings. “Blunt is angry because he has been stripped of his masculine garb; Lucetta … has stripped him of his clothes/costume, reversing the traditional seduction … in which woman, as the object of desire, is seduced and abandoned” (Hutner, 109). To regain some of his masculine worth, he wants to take the only value women possess – their virginity or chastity. He attempts to rape Florinda, and doesn’t seem to care that she is a “person of quality”[1] because he believes all women are whores; however, she holds him at bay, at least for a little while, with a ring. Blunt has a possession other than a woman now, and he rethinks his rape plans: “Hum, a diamond! Why, ‘tis a wonderful virtue now that lies in this ring, a mollifying virtue” (Act IV, sc.v, 155-156). While Blunt is still suspicious and keeps Florinda hostage, the financial, masculine virtue of the ring is enough to withhold the immediate threat of rape.

Angellica likewise loses her financial virtue. She has taken a manly economic tack by setting a price on herself, because she, as a courtesan, no longer has the most prized female virtue of virginity. Her honor must come from her trade, and she doesn’t see why she shouldn’t publicly declare her own monetary value, since men do the same when they seek a wife: “…are not you guilty of the same mercenary crime? When a lady is proposed to you for wife, you never ask how fair, discreet, or virtuous she is, but what’s her fortune; which, if but small, you cry, ‘She will not do my business’, and basely leave her, though she languish for you” (Act II, sc.ii, 105-111). Men are as guilty as Angellica of prostituting themselves, because they base their personal worth on money.

Is financial worth any better than symbolic honor? Angellica loses more when she pledges herself to Willmore, not only because she makes no money off him, but because his false vows break her heart. Willmore has taken her honor and thrown it away. Angellica pledges herself to Willmore, and “then I was a slave. / Yet still had been content to’ve worn my chains, / Worn ‘em with vanity and joy forever, / Hadst thou not broke those vows that put them on. / ‘Twas then I was undone” (Act V, 311-315). The double entendre of being “undone” shows that Angellica not only lost some economic security – some people will surely think she can be used for free now – but her emotional security. “Had I remained in innocent security, / I should have thought all men were born my slaves / … But when love held the mirror, the undeceiving glass / Reflected all the weakness of my soul, and made me know / My richest treasure being lost, my honor, / All the remaining spoil could not be worth / The conqueror’s care or value” (Act V, 339-349). Angellica has ruined even the manly, monetary honor she assumed by falling into the “other type of female behaviour which could potentially elicit the term ‘whore’, i.e. the woman who acts upon her own sexual desires, seeking sexual pleasure without any form of economic exchange” (Hodgson-Wright, 163). This will be far more detrimental to her reputation and assumed virtue than the mere loss of a thousand crowns.

While these two are the perfect, faithful Restoration lovers, they are kept apart through most of the play because Belvile has no financial value. Florinda’s continual pursuit of her chosen man makes her seem to all observers to be virtue-less, and she is set upon several times as an object of desire and nearly raped.[2] Belvile, on the other hand, is not considered worth Florinda’s hand, and must prove his personal integrity several times throughout the play.

A woman’s personal worth is tied into her virtue, and men entangle personal and financial value. Florinda combats this stereotype by choosing Belvile and refusing to submit to her brother’s will: “I would not have a man so dear to me as my brother follow the ill customs of our country and make a slave of his sister” (Act I, sc.i, 78-80). Florinda understands that an arranged marriage is a legalized form of slavery or prostitution. “The woman who earns her money by selling sex is defined by it, either legitimately, as wife, or as kept woman, courtesan, mistress, whore. Sex, and nothing else, is her trade” (Hodgson-Wright, 165). Florinda refuses to allow Pedro to become her pimp by selling her to the highest bidder, in this case Don Antonio; she struggles for a more ideal marriage. Unfortunately, she must act on her own to gain this perfect marriage, and in the process is several times mistaken for a whore: Willmore, in a drunken state, thinks her struggles are “the bargaining tactic of a prostitute” (Hodgson-Wright, 156); Blunt and Frederick do not recognize her, and assume that, because she wandered into their house unescorted, she must be a whore; Pedro does not recognize her as his sister, and the men draw their swords, the man with the longest receiving the girl. She defends herself with cries of her virtue and constancy, but she is not strong enough to constantly defend herself from the onslaught of men. “Thus Florinda’s less aggressive and, hence, more morally correct character (according to the patrilineal economy that constrains and confines her), ultimately affords her no freedom or protection from men’s violation and abuse. In this manner, Behn demonstrates that in a patriarchal economy virgin and whore are equally subject to male domination” (Hutner, 111). To protect herself, she has to rely on her wealth (the ring she gives Blunt), or her luck (Belvile’s well-times entrances). She is constantly victimized; “By leaving Florinda onstage [during her attempted rapes, which defied the Restoration convention of rape occurring off-stage] and depicting her personal distress, Behn forces the audience to see rape as a violation of one human subject by another, over and above any socio-economic considerations of sexual propriety and female chastity” (Hodgson-Wright, 157). If female chastity is devalued on a personal, woman-to-man basis, how is a woman to retain any dignity or security, even simple financial security?
Belvile is thrown into a similar economic predicament. He is a “banished cavalier,”[3] abroad to escape the Interregnum in England, and he has no wealth because of this. Pedro therefore considers Belvile an inappropriate match for Florinda, because, while the marriage would make them both happy, it would not make Florinda, or Pedro, wealthier. It does not conform to Restoration standards of a good match. By pairing Belvile and Florinda, Behn again undermines the cultural assumption that money and personal worth are bound together. Heidi Hutner points out, “Belvile, in contrast, is Florinda’s equal, but not her opposite. Behn’s revision implies that if women are to be virtuous, men must be virtuous too” (italics mine; 109). The playwright reinforces this concept with Florinda’s engagement to Don Antonio; while Antonio is a wealthy man –wealthy enough to afford Angellica’s price and not think twice about it – he is as inconstant as Willmore.

Belvile, by contrast, always refuses the temptations of other women. Disguised as a gypsy, Florinda tests his loyalty (“So, if I find him false, my whole repose is gone,” Act III, sc.i, 290-291), but Belvile refuses her politely: “And but for a vow I’ve made to a very fair lady, this goodness [offer] had subdued me” (Act III, sc.i, 292-293). Belvile is every inch the classic Restoration gentleman-hero, except he has no money; by severing his financial virtue, Behn insists it is more important for people to have personal integrity than wealth.

Every character in The Rover sets a price on love; Hellena and Willmore, however, are most explicit in their bargaining tactics. They both know exactly what they want – the experience of love, flirting, and sex with as few strings attached as possible. While they both actively pursue these goals, Willmore, as a man, has more freedom to pursue his choice of women, while Hellena must keep negotiating with him to give herself some security.

Hellena is a brilliant negotiator. She understands that she, as a beautiful and wealthy woman, can get men she wants: “I don’t intend every he that likes me shall have me, but he that I like” (Act III, sc.i, 50-51). She is, however, admittedly inconstant; Valeria admonishes her, “Thou wilt love this wand’ring inconstant till thou find’st thyself hanged about his neck, then thou be as mad to get free again” (Act III, sc.i, 37-40). Hellena does not disagree with her cousin, and admits, “I never thought beyond the fancy that ‘twas a very pretty, idle, silly kind of pleasure to pass the time with” (Act III, sc.i, 71-73). She seems not to care particularly who gives her this pleasure, except that she has made up her mind that, for the time being, she wants Willmore.

Willmore, however, is more notoriously inconstant than youthful Hellena; he sets a meeting with Hellena, then a few minutes later seduces Angellica to have sex with her for free. He spends most of the play chasing women, including Florinda, whom he tries to rape until he realizes she is a “person of quality”. “Like a clever merchant, he wants to get the most from the female goods with as little out of his own pocket as possible” (Hutner, 107). He even says, “Marriage is as certain a bane to love as lending money is to friendship” (Act V, 529-530). He refuses to get mixed up on a financial deal, because he, like Hellena, understands that marriage is a form of legalized prostitution. “Poor as I am I would not sell myself” (Act II, sc.ii, 69), Willmore declares; he will not sully himself with any form of prostitution, by either giving or receiving money for sex. And why should he, when there are enough women in the world who will do it for free?
Can a woman be so used and thrown away? Hellena, though a self-professed inconstant, refuses to submit herself to the dangers of free love. “And if you do not lose [the venture], what shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack of repentance at my back?” (Act V, 537-539). This is the crux of sexual economics; love is never free for women. She is in danger of having children out of wedlock, and being unable to provide for them, because Restoration society so limited women’s economic opportunities. Children are difficult to block from public view, and Hellena knows she will lose her honor and security if she submits without restraint to Willmore’s advances. She is, however, willing to bargain her price with Willmore: “I declare I’ll allow but one year for love, one year for indifference, and one year for hate; and then, go hang yourself, for I profess myself the gay, the kind, and the inconstant” (Act III, sc.i, 229-233). She is willing to overlook Willmore’s past mistakes to make herself happy, and Willmore, charmed by her honesty, agrees to marry her; “…we are so of one humor it must be a bargain” (Act V, 558-559). The trick to a successful marriage or love affair is for both partners to agree upon the terms.

CONCLUSION
In a patriarchal culture driven by economics, such as Restoration England, women will ultimately lose, unless they can find ways of manipulating the society. Angellica sets a high financial price on her sexual favors, because she has lost her feminine virtue and no man trusts her enough to marry her now; Lucetta seduces men then steals their purse; Florinda remains true to her heart and pursues the one man she wants; Hellena wants an admirer, any admirer, and is willing to negotiate to keep herself secure. Men, however, tend to lose in this society too, if they have no wealth, or no other merits beyond their wealth – Blunt’s money is stolen, and he has nothing left; Belvile, though a gentleman, has no fortune, and has to fight for Florinda; Willmore has to rely on his charms, or brute force, because he cannot afford a wife or a prostitute, and does not want to mix himself up in sexual economics anyway. Fortunately, the schemes of the main pairs – Florinda/Belvile, Hellena/Willmore – resolve in happy marriages. However, there are losers at the end of the play; Angellica, her heart broken, returns to being a courtesan, with Antonio buying her favors, and Blunt is stuck in a ridiculous Spanish outfit, without a lover to console him. Equality of the sexes has not been achieved by the end of the play, because Angellica and Blunt carry on within the Restoration standards as they did before; however, Aphra Behn seems to suggest, because two couples survive the trials of a capitalist marriage market, that reforming Restoration England is possible.

“Introduction.” The Selected Writings of the Ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn. Grove Press: New York, 1950.

Behn, Aphra. The Rover; or, the Banished Cavaliers. Stages of Drama: Classical to Contemporary Theatre. Bedford/St. Martin’s: Boston, 2003.

Hodgson-Wright, Stephanie. “Undress, Cross-dress, Redress: Aphra Behn and the Manipulation of Genre.” Women and Dramatic Production 1550-1700. Alison Findley and Stephanie Hodgson-Wright with Gweno Williams. Longman: Essex, 2000.

Hutner, Heidi. “Revisioning the Female Body: Aphra Behn’s The Rover, Parts I and II.” Rereading Aphra Behn: History, Theory, and Criticism. Ed. Heidi Hutner. University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville, 1993.

[1] “Person of quality” is used several times in The Rover, and so I did not quote a line specifically.

[2] Hutner, Heidi. “Revisioning the Female Body: Aphra Behn’s The Rover, Parts I and II.”

[3] Quoted from the full title of the play, The Rover; or, the Banished Cavaliers.