ABSTRACT
Perhaps it was not the adultery theme alone which led Vanbrugh to choose Durfey's play. He could have found that in a hundred others. It is adultery carried out at home. In A Fond Husband Emilia and Rashley cuckold Sir Peregrine Bubble in an upstairs apartment of his own house while he congratulates himself on his happy marriage. Violating domesticity as well as the marriage vows, in the marriage-conscious 1690s, seemed doubly atrocious. It does not happen in The Country Wife or Mr Limberham, but Durfey's brand of sex farce could be seen as glamourizing adultery in a particularly cynical way. Not that Vanbrugh held this view. He is citing Durfey as the moralists saw him. Jeremy Collier would belabour him with special rage.
