ABSTRACT
Changing representations of jealous husbands had important class connotations. Reform comedies such as The Generous Husband and The Suspicious Husband thus participate in broader cultural projects of rewriting the meanings of husbandly jealousy. Certainly, plays such as Johnson's The Generous Husband use the stereotypical lineaments of the cit-cuckolding plot as a springboard for offering new, more flattering, paradigms for middling class masculinity. Johnson's opening portrayal of Carizales as a 'mere' cit is especially evident in his attitude to money. The problem of course is that Carizales, as a possessive individual, relates to Lucy as a proprietor, imposing the dynamic of the market upon intimate human relationships. Johnson's coding of a business virtue as a marital folly evinces an anxiety that was becoming increasingly common in the eighteenth century. The rising importance and prevalence of commerce evoked fears amongst thinkers of the period that it would infect the most sacred and intimate of relationships.
