Michael Noschka
ENG 579
19 September
2008
Can’t Buy Me Love:
Commodity and Courtship in Aphra Behn’s The
Rover
In Aphra Behn’s The Rover, the language of courtship and commerce become conflated. While feminist critics celebrate Behn’s
assertive female characters and argue for Behn as a proto-feminist by citing her
representation of the multiple attempted rapes in the text as an indictment of masculine
sexual hegemony, Behn’s drama ultimately maintains a patriarchal paradigm of
marriage. In the end, patriarchy, like
virginity, is preserved, and more importantly, traded. Yet Behn’s female characters often have more
agency than their female contemporaries, an agency derived from their awareness
and appropriation of masculine commodifying language. Although they themselves remain commodities
to be traded, Behn’s female characters are fully aware of their status as
objects and thereby empower themselves by usurping the proxy of their filial
brokers and instead negotiate their own marriage contracts. If they are to be bartered, then they would
choose to whom they are to be traded. Behn’s
female characters are aware that they must negotiate an unstable economic
market in which their marital value is often as equitable as a courtesan’s
dowry. By appropriating the masculine
language of commerce and trade they negotiate their own marriage contracts in
which they become the active executors.
The social language of marriage during
the Restoration and throughout the Early Modern period is a language of
commodity and trade. In The Rover’s opening dialogue between
Florinda and Hellena, Behn presents female characters who are not only aware of
this rhetoric of commodification, but who also reverse the tropes by
objectifying the man:
HELLENA:
That blush betrays you. I am sure ‘tis so—or is it
Don Antonio the viceroy’s son? or perhaps
the rich
old Don Vincentio whom my father designs
you
for a husband? Why do you blush again?
FLORINDA:
With indignation, and how near soever my
father
thinks I am to marrying that hated
object. (I.i.20-25)
Florinda is initially established in the
traditional role of commodity, as noted by her father’s reported designs in
procuring her a husband (ll. 22-23). It
is her virginity that is to be traded to Don Vincentio in order to flatter his
aging pride while bolstering her family’s wealth and status (cf. I.i.129-35). Yet, within the pause of a breath, Florinda
usurps this linguistic model, recreating Don Vincentio as not only an object,
but a “hated object” (ll. 25).
Seemingly
unbeknownst to himself, Pedro enters into this same usage of gender- inverted
commodifying language when he speaks to Florinda regarding Don Vincentio and
Belvile, who are commodified and weighed in terms of their comparative market
value:
PEDRO:
Yes, pay him what you will in honor, but
you must
consider Don Vincentio’s fortune and the
jointure
he’ll make for you. (I.i.90-92)
PEDRO:
‘Tis true, he’s not so young and fine a
gentleman
as that Belvile, but what jewels will
that cavalier
present you with? those of his eyes and heart?
(I.i.97-98)
According to Pedro, the voice of paternal
authority by proxy, Florinda is to value Don Vincentio based solely on his
fortune. Vincentio is thus recreated as
object for both Florinda and Pedro; however, where Florinda sees an object
worthy of hatred, Pedro envisions objects representing wealth and opportunity
(cf. I.i.159-61), commodities capable of increasing his own fortune as well as
his sister’s. Pedro further reduces Belvile
in his state as a commodity. Belvile is
effeminized through conventional petrarchan tropes; his “jewels,” the only
wealth that he possesses, are his eyes and heart. Such metaphorical language is typically
reserved for the language of courtship, and is exchanged between the male lover
and the female beloved wherein the female functions as the objectified
jewel. Thus, within the first one
hundred lines of play text, Behn complicates the conventional gendered language
of commodification by rendering men and women objectified equals. More importantly, however, is the fact that
Behn’s female characters are the ones who initiate this subversion of
commodifying language by initially usurping its objectifying tropes.
In
the world of The Rover, and
Restoration England alike, the language of marriage is often reported in the
vocabulary of commerce, a language traditionally reserved for men. Yet in Behn’s unique dramatic world women are
able to negotiate their own marriage contracts for themselves by understanding
and employing the same vocabulary. To trade
herself in such a market, however, the woman must first accept her role as a
commodity:
HELLENA:
[…] Prithee, tell me, what dost thou
see about me that is unfit for love? Have I not a
world of youth? a humor gay?
a beauty passable? a
vigor desirable? well shaped?
clean limbed? sweet
breathed?
and sense enough to know how all these
ought to be employed to the best
advantage? Yes, I
do and will; therefore, lay aside your
hopes of my
fortune by my being a devote… (I.i.48-55)
It is Hellena’s awareness of her
commodified state that empowers her. The
extended auto-biographical list of her physical attributes (ll. 49-53) attests
to Hellena’s awareness of her state as object and her value in the trade-market
of marriage. More important, however, is
her assertion that she has “sense enough to know how all these / ought to be
employed to the best advantage” (ll. 52-53).
This is the language of venture capitalism, which is explicitly rendered
in Hellena’s final speech in act one, in which she affirms that she will not be
bound to a nunnery—the marriage her father has designed for her—but will seek a
husband at carnival among “any that dares venture on me” (I.i.75).
This
vocabulary of venture, interest, business and markets marks the language of
marriage within The Rover as a
language of trade and commerce. As
previously noted, Hellena’s choice of phrase for announcing her independent
plan for marriage is that of a venture. The Oxford English Dictionary defines venture as “an enterprise of a business
nature in which there is considerable risk of loss as well as chance of gain; a
commercial speculation.” Belvile is
complicit to negotiate marriage in a similar vocabulary of commerce when he
speaks of Florinda: “I have int’rest enough in that / lovely virgin’s heart”
(I.ii.25-26). While Belvile’s interest
in Florinda’s heart is literally his desire for her hand in marriage, a
commercial connotation resonates as well.
As noted by Pedro in I.i.155-56, Belvile has no wealth to offer
Florinda. Thus, his marriage to a
wealthy and well-endowered (i.e. well en-dower-ed) lady would prove a wise
financial investment, one capable of generating lifelong interest, in fiscal and physical terms. Willmore, perhaps, is the best voice for the
use of the language of commerce and trade relating to amorous relationships and
ultimately marriage:
WILLMORE:
[…]
Love and
mirth are my business in
not
the place, here’s an excellent market for
chapmen
of my humor. (I.ii.85-88)
Willmore’s language also marks a
distinctive linguistic trope that occurs throughout The Rover: the tenuous delineation marking women of quality, i.e.
marriageable, virtuous women, and courtesans.
While love and mirth are his business while in
It is this delineation between the wife
and the whore that is increasingly difficult to assess linguistically. Note, for instance, Belvile’s response to
Willmore’s lustful language of trade: “See, here be those kind merchants of
love you look / for” (I.ii.89-90). Here
Belvile is referring to prostitutes wearing paper roses. But this language can also be mapped onto
Hellena, who is in the market of trading her heart out of the convent and into
the marriage bed. In this mode Hellena,
too, becomes a merchant of love.
This issue is further complicated when
one considers that the virginal Hellena is as savvy a businesswoman as an
experienced courtesan. Hellena and
Lucetta use similar language to identify themselves within their respective
markets. Hellena’s first words to Willmore,
spoken while dressed as a gypsy, are in the commercial language of venture
capitalism:
HELLENA:
Have a care how you venture with me, sir,
lest I pick
your pocket, which will more vex your
English
humor than an Italian fortune will please
you. (I.ii.152-54)
While her usage of venture reiterates her speech designating her entrance into the
marital marketplace (I.i.174-75), Hellena’s talk of picking Willmore’s pockets
and vexing his English humor parallels Lucetta’s own language regarding Blunt:
LUCETTA:
This is a stranger, I know by his gazing;
if he be
brisk, he’ll venture to follow me, and
then, if I
understand my trade, he’s mine. He’s English too…
(I.ii.234-36)
For Hellena and Lucetta, venture denotes financial risk; and like
Lucetta, Hellena understands her trade well.
As Willmore repeatedly tries to convince Hellena to sleep with him, and
she tries repeatedly to persuade him to marry her first, Hellena acknowledges
the contractual, commercial nature of sex and marriage: “‘Tis but getting my
consent, and the business is / soon done” (V.i.476-77). Here the tenuous delineation between the wife
and the whore is voiced by Behn’s central female character. If Hellena yields to Willmore’s rhetoric and
consents to have sex with him, then their business is sexual only, and
therefore conducted in the sexualized marketplace of the courtesan. If Willmore consents to Hellena’s argument,
then their business culminates in a marriage contract, freeing her from her
patriarchal-imposed life of celibacy, while maintaining patriarchal authority
insofar as she is marrying within noble society (Willmore is a gentleman), like
Florinda’s marriage to Belvile, and not
outside of her socioeconomic position.
It is on this note that Behn concludes her play:
HELLENA:
Why,
I have considered the matter, brother, and
find
the three hundred thousand crowns my uncle
left
me (and you cannot keep from me) will be
better
laid out in love than in religion, and turn
to as good an account. (V.i.572-76)
Thus, Hellena, by appropriating the
masculine language of commerce and trade, negotiates her own marriage contract,
becoming the active executor of her own social and sexual future. Although patriarchal codes are maintained,
they are done so at the will, and by the design, of the female characters.
WORKS
CITED
Behn, Aphra. “The Rover; or, The Banished Cavaliers.” The
Broadview Anthology of Restoration & Early Eighteenth-Century Drama.
Ed. J. Douglas Canfield.
“Venture.” Def. 4a. The