SOURCE: “L'École des femmes: Marriage and the Laws of Chance,” in Intruders in the Play World: The Dynamics of Gender in Molière's Comedies, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, pp. 77-98.

In this excerpt, Lalande examines The School for Wives as a struggle between the “masculine” principle of Law and the “feminine” principle of Chance. Ultimately, she argues, the principles are reconciled, but the reconciliation is based upon the subservience the feminine to the masculine.

Mon Dieu, ne gagez pas: vous perdriez vraiment.

—L'Ecole des femmes II, 5

It would be difficult to undertake a study of the dialectics of inclusion, exclusion, and intrusion of the female character in relation to the parameters of the comic circle without examining L'Ecole des femmes. The theatrical motif is immediately apparent and leads to an early division of the characters into three groups: director, spectator, and object of ridicule. These roles, however...