The Country Wife is a
Restoration comedy written in 1675 by
William Wycherley. A product of the tolerant early
Restoration period, the play reflects an
aristocratic and anti-
Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time. The title itself contains a lewd pun. It is based on several plays by
Molière, with added features that 1670s London audiences demanded:
colloquial prose dialogue in place of Molière's
verse, a complicated, fast-paced plot tangle, and many sex jokes. It turns on two indelicate plot devices: a
rake's trick of pretending
impotence to safely have clandestine affairs with married women, and the arrival in London of an inexperienced young "country wife", with her discovery of the joys of town life, especially the fascinating London men.