1

Autonomy of Womans Body / Carnival in Rover

Performed in 1677, Aphra Behns play, The Rover, speaks to this double standard, which
limited her female peers sexual desires to the realm of convent, brothel, or home. Set loose in
the topsy-turvy world of Carnival, her characters demonstrate the active, complicated game
required of women seeking to secure personal happiness. The dangers of the chase and the
plays tidy conclusion, on the other hand, suggest at how ladies neither could nor should stray
too far into the masculine roles of wooer and possessor. Late Stuart society, Behn seems to
lament, offered no place to the sexually free, libertine woman.
The fall of the Puritan Commonwealth did little to dispel the political and religious tensions
that affected the early Modern British conception of womanhood. Even after the
Protectorates end, Roundhead beliefs dictated the necessity for female subordination and
obedience to her husband, as ordained by several Bible verses (Hughes 295). Eves role in
the division of mankind from God fuelled[a cultural] conviction of the weakness and
sinfulness of women (295). Thus female sexuality was perceived as a spiritual flaw to
manage. Male governance of the female body, once responsible for Adams downfall, led to a
Puritan masculinization of desirethe creation of woman as other and as objectthat [was]
crucial to a sexual ideology that insists on the indivisibility of feminine chastity from
feminine identity (Hutner 104). By appropriating sexuality, Roundhead men narrowed the
confines of womens acceptable roles in society to one alone: the wife, family-oriented and
sexually pure. Neither Catholic nun nor transgressive prostitute met Puritan expectations for
women.
Written seventeen years after Richard Cromwell left England, The Rover responds to these
vestiges of Puritan belief in English society. In her epilogue, Behn mocks the strait-laced
prudishness that would turn humor into a form of sinful self-pleasure: The devils int if this
[play] will please the nation / in these our blessed times of reformation (Behn 242). She
disparages judgmental leaders, who damn everything that maggot disapproves, want to
censor theatre, and to dull method all our sense confine (242). Her derision places under
public scrutiny the validity of Puritan disapproval. If an audience member doubts the sects
condemnation of one aspect of society, other frowned-upon practices might be thrown into
question. Accusing the Puritan voice of restricting the audiences sense encourages the
publics examination of normative understandings of the English culture, specifically in
regards to gender.
Royalist libertinism seemed to offer the sexual liberation for which Behn hoped to attract
support. The movement romanticized the image of the wealthy court rogue as passionate
womanizer and at least allowed for womens free enjoyment of sexual pleasure (Staves 21).
As one scholar wryly remarked, however, the idea that late Stuart ideology created a
liberating space for women is as false as a school childs notion of the jolly cavalier (Owen
15). The transition back into the loose, showy world of the monarchy merely removed the
insolence of commonwealths from executive, not social, power (Behn 242). For women,
both cultural expectations, influenced by Puritan beliefs, and reality problematized any desire

for sexual freedom. Where the hedonistic ideology encouraged passion outside of marriage,
few ladies could not support themselves without stable male support (Staves 21). Breaking
from the exalted vision of the lovely maiden, young women risked public judgment and
scorn, loss of reputation, disease, and pregnancyall of which would be detrimental to
maintaining the libertine lifestyle from which they originated. Prostitution could achieve this
sexual freedom by trading reputation for money, but such work failed to attain the devil-maycare passion associated with Charles IIs court.
Behns female characters strive for independence within the limitations of the English system
of courtship and marriage. In The Rover, the three leading ladies are all capable and proactive
young women who exhibit the initiative and daring reserved for cavaliers (Burke 122).
Over the course of the play, each takes upon herself the position of active wooer. Maidenly
Hellena openly vows to do not as my wise brother imagines [for her future], but to love
and to be beloved by reeling in a husband (Behn 170). Her virginal sister, Florinda, and the
sexually liberated courtesan, Angellica Bianca, adopt similar goals in pursuit of passion.
They are nothing like the subordinate females of Puritan propriety, but witty, competent
matches for the men they meet. Through their strong personalities, Behn suggests at early
British womens potential to feel and act confidently on sexual feelings, thus
[demasculinizing] desire and [subverting] the construction of woman as a self-policing
and passive commodity (Hutner 104).
The foppish Cavaliers of The Rover are juxtaposed as foils against these women to further
emphasize feminine ability and power. The romantic heroes, Willmore and Belvile, do win
Hellena and Florinda, as well as their bounteous dowries, in matrimony; however, their
actions are nearly their undoing along the way. Belviles well-intentioned efforts to woo his
lady bring him close to her several times, but backfire without fail. One Samaritan act lands
him in prison. Willmore ruins his friends secret rendezvous with Florinda by drunkenly
accosting her and raising a commotion. Later, as a disguised Belvile prepares to marry his
love, Willmore reveals his identity with a hug, knocking Belviles vizard out ons hand
and effectively destroying hopes for the wedding (Behn 198). A common prostitute dupes the
comic figure, Ned Blunt, despite his comrades warning of possible deception. Florindas
brother Pedro, along with the English band, becomes so absorbed in the libertine hunt for
sexual conquest that he nearly rapes his own sister. The blundering behavior of the English
cavaliers speaks to the reason and abilities of women and encourages late Stuart Britain to
respect the female libertine as a strong, capable lady, not a whore.
Each woman begins the play bound one of the three fates: Florinda to marriage, Hellena to
the nunnery, and Angellica Bianca to well-paid prostitution. Through Carnival, however,
these women abandon their prescribed positions with disguises to be mad as the rest, and
take all innocent freedoms, including to outwit twenty brothers (Behn 138-139). The
masquerade serves multiple purposes. First, disguise equalizes the class distinctions,
[blurring, criticizing] andeven [satirizing] the difference between the categories available
to women (Kreis-Schinck 160). When lost in the festivities, the ladies join all that are, or
would have you think theyre courtesans, the most sexually liberated women (Behn 142).

Their initial costumes as gypsies allow them to approach men in a feminized, desirous way.
Gypsies already occupy the role of outcast on the liminal edge of society; by taking on their
looks, Florinda and Hellena put themselves and their sexuality outside the confines of cultural
expectation. Their decision implies Behns opinion that her peers should seek to escape the
restrictions that define them.
Hellena and Angellica also take on the appearances of men during the play. Such costumes
permit them to alter their lovers choices and lives. Dressed in mans clothes, Hellena can
punish Willmore for his infidelity with something [shell] do to vex him (Behn 202). She
interferes in a meeting of Willmore and Angellica by informing the courtesan of a young
English gentleman who wooed another woman and then paid his broken vows to you
(Behn 204). Seeking revenge an act later, Angellica Bianca dons a masking habit and
vizard and threatens Willmore with a pistol (Behn 228). Her choice of weaponguns were
used almost exclusively by men during Behns timeis symbolic of her attempt to usurp
phallic control of her own sexual desires (Hutner 108). Instead of feminizing her lust,
Angellica masculinizes herself. By masquerading as men, both women demonstrate how
ladies may take ownership of rights associated only male Cavaliers, romance, justice, and
sexuality.
The obligatory happy ending of The Rover reveals the unfairness of the libertine system
and the demandindeed, the unquestioned assumptionthat women would fit into the
socially set role of prostitute or wife. Florinda and Hellenas attempts to challenge their
brothers arrangements are successful; the former marries her lover and the latter escapes a
future as handmaid to lazars and cripples in the nunnery (Behn 137). However, their
enterprising boldness in chasing men leads them into the same wifely duties of most women.
Their challenge to the repression of their autonomy and desires still leads to the
hierarchical man-woman relationship of Puritan wedlock (Hutner 111).
Angellicas attempt to unite her sexuality with true love fails. She is initially immune to the
general disease of [the female] sexthat of being in love (Behn 157). She can sleep with
whomever she wants and has found a way around Behns observation that women need
reliable male support. However, her life lacks the romantic passion of the hedonistic
lifestyle. Moreover, Angellicas sexual liberation, for which lovers must pay to experience,
contributes to her inability to snag Willmores long-term affection. His lust could have been
satiated with her portrait since someone else would have the thousand crowns to give for the
original (Behn 160). Her relegation back to courtesan shows how transgressive, premarital
sex and proper marriage cannot mix. As a sexual female, Angellica has no place in world
when in the throes of libertine love: she can be neither indifferent courtesan nor devoted wife.
The actions and treatment of women in Aphra Behns play expose the narrow social
limitations within which early Modern British women found themselves. Hellena and
Florinda have the potential to explore their sexual freedom at Carnival, but they focus instead
on securing financial futures with men they like. Sex may be used, as Hellena shows, as a
bartering chip to obtain a promise of marriage; when loosed for a young womans pleasure,

however, sexuality keeps her from happiness. Through Angellica, Hellena, and Florinda,
Behn reveals that the libertine female has no place in late Stuart society. The playwrights
observation comes as a wistful warning at a time when women seemed to push the limits of
tradition. Actresses appearing on stage might feel they had found a career of bodily
expression, but from Behns experience as a woman with male colleagues, the freedom is a
faade. Women on stage faced fetishization and loss of status. Behns commentary on
womens position in the late Stuart period serves to point out the double standard of
libertinism in court life and the public sphere. By exposing and mocking the Puritanical and
Cavalier restraints imposed on ladies, she encourages viewers to reevaluate womens limited
roles in the new age.