The Rover: Aphra Behn’s Play That Let Women Speak

 This blog task was assigned by Megha Trivedi Ma'am (Department Of English, MKBU).

1) Angellica considers the financial negotiations that one makes before marrying a prospective bride the same as prostitution. Do you agree?

Marriage or Prostitution? Angellica’s Daring Question in Aphra Behn’s The Rover

In Aphra Behn’s The Rover, the character of Angellica Bianca raises one of the most thought-provoking and controversial questions in literature: she compares the financial negotiations that take place before marriage to prostitution. Her statement shakes the very foundation of how society views love, marriage, and morality. While her words may sound bold or even scandalous, they reveal the deep hypocrisy and gender inequality of her time — and perhaps, of ours too.

 Who is Angellica Bianca?

Angellica is a courtesan — a woman who earns money through romantic or physical relationships with wealthy men. She is intelligent, beautiful, and aware of her social position. Despite living in a world that judges and isolates her, Angellica is brutally honest about her reality. She does not hide behind false respectability or pretend her relationships are based on love. She openly admits that money and pleasure are the foundation of her profession.

However, Angellica also observes the world around her — especially the so-called “respectable” society — and she sees the same kind of transaction happening there, only under a different name: marriage.

Marriage as a Financial Contract

In the 17th century, marriages were rarely based on love. They were arranged between families to maintain wealth, social status, and property. Dowries and financial negotiations were central to the process. A woman’s value was often measured by how much money, land, or inheritance she brought to the marriage.

Angellica, therefore, questions the moral difference between her own relationships and these marriages. If both involve the exchange of love or companionship for financial gain, she argues, then society’s judgment is hypocritical. A courtesan sells love for money openly, while a wife does the same within the security of marriage — yet only the former is condemned.

 The Hypocrisy of Society

Angellica’s bold statement exposes the double standards of a patriarchal society. Women like her are shamed for being honest about money, while wives who marry for wealth are celebrated as virtuous. Behn, through Angellica’s voice, questions why society values appearances over truth.

This hypocrisy is not limited to Angellica’s time. Even today, many marriages are influenced by financial or social status rather than genuine emotional connection. In that sense, Angellica’s comparison remains deeply relevant.

 Love Versus Economics

At the heart of Angellica’s argument is a longing for real love. Despite being a courtesan, she yearns for a relationship based on affection and emotional honesty, not money. When she falls in love with Willmore, she believes she has finally found that pure connection. But Willmore betrays her, proving that even love is often corrupted by lust, deceit, and selfishness. Her heartbreak further reinforces her belief that money and desire often control human relationships more than sincerity does.

 Behn’s Feminist Critique

Aphra Behn, one of the first professional female playwrights in English literature, uses Angellica as her mouthpiece to express a feminist critique of her society. Through Angellica, Behn challenges the idea that marriage automatically makes a woman respectable. She suggests that both marriage and prostitution are systems created by men — one is legal and socially accepted, while the other is condemned, yet both serve male desires and economic control over women.

Behn’s portrayal of Angellica is powerful because she does not make her a villain. Instead, Angellica becomes a mirror reflecting society’s corruption, greed, and false morality.

 My View: I Agree with Angellica

I personally agree with Angellica’s statement. When marriages are treated as business deals — with discussions about dowries, income, and status — they lose their emotional depth. Such unions become transactions where love is secondary and financial benefit is primary. In that sense, Angellica is right: both marriage and prostitution can involve the exchange of the same thing — the body or companionship — for money or material comfort.

Marriage should be based on mutual respect, love, and trust, not on wealth or social position. Angellica’s words remind us that when we treat relationships as trades, we destroy their emotional purity.

Conclusion

Angellica Bianca’s comparison between marriage and prostitution is not merely a shocking statement; it is a bold critique of society’s moral blindness. Aphra Behn uses her character to reveal that the line separating “respectability” and “sin” is thinner than people admit.

2) “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” Virginia Woolf said so in ‘A Room of One’s Own’. Do you agree with this statement? Justify your answer with reference to your reading of the play ‘The Rover’.

Aphra Behn — The Woman Who Gave Women a Voice

Virginia Woolf once wrote, “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” These powerful words remind us that Aphra Behn was not just a playwright — she was a revolutionary voice for women at a time when they were expected to remain silent. Her play The Rover stands as a shining example of her courage, intelligence, and her fight for women’s freedom of expression.

 Aphra Behn: A Woman Ahead of Her Time

Aphra Behn lived in the 17th century — an age when women were denied education, property rights, and creative freedom. Writing for the stage was seen as improper for women. Yet, Behn defied all expectations. She became the first professional female playwright in English literature and earned her living through writing — something unheard of for women then.

In doing so, she opened the door for future women writers like Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, and Virginia Woolf herself. Woolf admired Behn because she turned her pen into a tool of independence. She dared to do what society told women they couldn’t — think, write, and earn through their own voices.

‘The Rover’: A Bold Stage for Women’s Voices

Behn’s play The Rover is more than a comedy of love and adventure — it is a statement about women’s desire, freedom, and intelligence. Through her female characters — especially Hellena, Florinda, and Angellica Bianca — Behn gives women the right to speak, choose, and question.

Hellena, the witty and rebellious young woman, refuses to accept the quiet life of a nun chosen for her by her family. She boldly flirts, argues, and decides her own future — something rare for women in Restoration drama.

Florinda, on the other hand, represents women’s struggle for freedom in love. She wishes to marry the man she loves, not the one chosen for her wealth or family honor.

Angellica Bianca, a courtesan, questions society’s double standards. She openly speaks about love and money — issues women were not “allowed” to discuss in polite society.

Through these characters, Behn proves that women can think deeply, love passionately, and speak bravely. She refuses to silence them — instead, she places them at the center of her stage.

Breaking the Silence

Before Aphra Behn, women’s voices in literature were almost invisible. They were often idealized as pure, passive, and voiceless. But Behn broke this silence. She wrote about female desire, independence, and social hypocrisy — topics that male writers often ignored or misrepresented.

Her courage gave women a new kind of power: the right to express their thoughts honestly. When Virginia Woolf says that all women should “let flowers fall upon her tomb,” she means that every woman who speaks freely today owes something to Behn’s bravery. Without her, the history of women’s writing might have taken much longer to begin.

 Why I Agree with Woolf

I completely agree with Virginia Woolf’s statement. Aphra Behn truly earned women the right to speak their minds. Through The Rover, she proved that women’s thoughts are not only valuable but necessary. She used her art to fight patriarchy, to question injustice, and to show that women, too, could be creators — not just muses.

In her lifetime, Behn faced criticism and scandal for writing openly about love and desire, yet she never stopped. Her courage reminds every woman that to have a voice is to have power.

 Conclusion: The Flowers She Deserves

Aphra Behn’s tomb deserves to be covered with flowers not only for her literary genius but for her defiance — her choice to live, write, and think freely when the world wanted her silent.

The Rover is her gift to all women — a reminder that freedom begins with expression. Virginia Woolf was right — every woman who speaks, writes, or dreams today is walking the path that Aphra Behn once bravely carved with her pen.

Reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rover_(play)

Pacheco, Anita. “Rape and the Female Subject in Aphra Behn’s ‘The Rover.’” ELH, vol. 65, no. 2, 1998, pp. 323–45. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30030182. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.

https://www.enotes.com/topics/rover