Questioning Gender roles and Commercialization of Marriage in Aphra Behn’s ‘The

Rover’

The social and sexual freedom which was prevalent in the times of Aphra Behn and the
attitude of libertinism, which the males of the Restoration Society enjoyed thoroughly,
did not extend to ladies. The prejudice against women was obvious in the society of the
Seventeenth century, the time where men dominated in al important social areas like –
economics, commerce, politics religion and culture. Women were expected to belong to
the areas of the sentiment away from and antagonistic to intellect. Women in those times
were looking for autonomy in their life choices and wanted to express their sexual
desires, but their lives were restricted within the boundaries of three roles which were
subscribed for them by the Patriarchal Order: nun, prostitute, and of the wife. Behn’s
commentary on women’s position in the Restoration Society in this play points out the
double standards of libertinism in court life and in the public domain. By exposing and
mocking the Puritanical and Cavalier restraints imposed on ladies, Behn urges and
encourages the readers to reevaluate women’s limited roles in the new age.

Performed in 1677, Aphra Behn’s play, The Rover, tries to depict the double standards of
the Restoration society which was dominated by the males and which limited it’s female
counterparts to the realms of convent, brothel, and home. The play is set in a
carnivalesque tradition where the Aristocratic class could let go of it’s fake Morals and
high standards and could engage in bouts of sex and drinking.The Male characters in the
play depicts the game that they play (the game of chasing and wooing a women) to secure
sexual and personal happiness. Aphra Behn in this play seems to lament the fact that
women were bounded to certain roles which were prescribed to them by the Patriarchal
order. This patriarchal order and the societal norms had no place for the sexually free and
the libertine woman, Women who wanted to express her Individuality and sexuality. The
actions of the Male characters and treatment of women in this play expose and portray
the narrow social and societal boundations within which early Women of the Restoration
times found themselves. The character of Hellena in the play opposes this patronising
attitude towards female sexuality, and longs to “know” the paths of love and sex, which
Florinda is reluctant to share with her impertinent sister, even though she is poorly
educated in these matters herself.

Behn in this play addresses some delicate issues concerning men’s and women’s rights,
duties and privileges and also she tries to depict the problem in the society where gender
roles had an important hold as it was a society where male dominance was inherent. The
character of Willmore in the play envisages marriage as a “juggling knot”,(The Rover
5.1.198:) denoting marriage as a means by which women used to cheat men of their
fortunes. The act of Sex has the potential to be used as a bartering chip to obtain a
promise of marriage. Hellena in the play uses sex as a means to procure a promise of
marriage.Through the characters of Angellica, Hellena, and Florinda, the playwright
reveals that the libertine female has no place in late Stuart society.
This typical depiction of women as people who are cunning and are always looking for
means to woo men and rob them off of their fortunes is questionable as it is these men
who give women the promise of marriage to engage in sexual activities and later shrug
them off. This attitude of Men in the Restoration society towards women , the attitude of
seeing women as a means of sexual satisfaction and nothing more. Aphra Behn is very
successful in bringing out the Misogynistic and the Misogamist tendencies of the society,
Behn also brings out the specified gender roles in the society.

Hellena and Florinda the two sisters in the play are shown to have the potential to explore
their sexual freedom at Carnival in the very beginning of the play but instead of doing
this they focused on securing their futures both financially and sexually by wooing the
men with power and money. This typical depiction in the play depicts the boundations
that were imposed upon women and how this Patriarchal order has bounded their minds
and psyche to only look for the means of securing a future even if it comes at the expense
of their own aspirations and desires.
It can be argued that Behn deliberately confounds the notions of marriage and the roles
assigned to males and females in the Restoration society, she wanted to expose fractures
in the patriarchal system that defines the role of the sexes. These fractures disclose the
lack of a female stance in the patriarchally structured institution of marriage and the
patriarchal hierarchy of the two sexes. Behn depicts her female characters as self-
determined agents in their love relationships, rebelling against social customs and
restrictions concerning their sex. As such, these women struggle against patriarchal
definitions of gender and social limitations for women to account for themselves as
autonomous, rational beings with a sexuality repressed by the rules of decorum. In this
play Behn denounces forced marriages and women’s commodification in matrimony.

Aphra Behn attempts to mingle traditionally labelled male and female qualities in the
female characters of this play. As Anita Pacheco observes, Hellena acts according to her
own sexual drive, which clashes with patriarchal conceptions of femininity. Since the role
of Hellena is a breech-parts, her association with male qualities becomes evident, she
destabilizes traditional instances of gender displays. Disguising themselves as men,
Hellena translates her ‘masculine’ desire to court into physical appearances. Her male
costumes reveal her need to conceal her feminine nature as patriarchal norms silence
female sexual intents.

The commitment between Hellena and Willmore at the end of ‘The Rover’ “envisages
the possibility of a relationship between men and women not based on ownership or
domination” (Chernaik 205).

Behn attempts to assert a female version of libertinism, for which she blurs the distinction
between a typically male and female sexual identity.

These so called “free unions of equals” contrast with the bargaining nature of forced
marriages and prostitution in the play. The last scene between Hellena and Willmore even
suggests a reversal of their (constructed) masculine and feminine sexual identities; the
rover calls himself “Robert the constant,” whereas she is named “Hellena the inconstant”
(5.1.483, 489).
In this play Behn’s female characters are self-willed, active and witty, the readers
experiences a clash with the patriarchal social customs that restrains and limits women’s
self- fulfilment. In her portrayal of marriage in this, the playwright exposes the unequal
and mercenary nature of the institution of marriage that regulates and naturalises
contemporary ideas of gender. Behn especially denounces forced or arranged marriages,
in which the husband can enrich himself, but the female party can only confine her
identity in the socially prescribed gender role for a wife.

Behn through the portrayal of women in this play challenges the traditional boundaries
between genders by arbitrarily conferring masculine and feminine qualities to both sexes.
Her conception of the constructed passive and yielding female sexuality is embodied by
Angellica, whereas an unorthodox, but more spontaneous, sensuous identity is portrayed
in the character of Hellena and Ariadne. They pursue their erotic appetite like the male
characters in the plays do.By pushing gender roles to such extremes, Behn uses her drama
to reveal their disturbing and even destructive nature. The Rover is a comedy, but it
depicts a troubling reality: that rigid adherence to gender roles may lead to serious and
far-reaching consequences.
 Works Cited

 Chernaik, Warren. “My masculine part: Aphra Behn and the androgynous imagination.” Sexual
freedom in Restoration Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 160-213.

 Rottiers, Elien. “Marriage and gender in Aphra Behn’s The Rover and Eliza Haywood’s Love in
Excess”

 Behn, Aphra. “The Rover”. Worldview Publications 2000, revised edition 2013