Chaste Maid in Cheapside, A (New Mermaids)

Written for the adult players at the open-air Swan theatre in 1613,this master-piece of Jacobean city comedy signals its ironic natureeven in the title: chaste maids, like most other goods and people inLondon's busiest commercial area, are likely to be fake. Money is moreimportant than either happiness or honour; and the most covetedcommodities to be bought with it are sex and social prestige. Middletoninterweaves the fortunes of four families, who either seek to marrytheir children off as profitably as possible, to stop having any morefor fear of poverty, or to acquire some in order to keep their propertyin the family. Most prosperous is the husband who pimps his wife to arich knight and lets him support the household with his alimony. Likemany early modern critics of London's enormous growth, this playwarned: the city is a monster that lives off the money the countryproduces.