Overview

Although Cicely Hamilton calls the play "a romantic comedy," like George Bernard Shaw she also criticizes a social structure in which so-called self-made men profit from the cheap labour of others, and men with good educations, but insufficient inherited money, look for wealthy wives rather than for work.This Broadview edition also includes excerpts from Hamilton's autobiography Life Errant (1935) and Marriage as a Trade (1909), her witty polemic on "the woman question"; historical documents illustrating employment options for women and women's work in the theatre; and reviews of the original production of the play.