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Well yes, it's dated, the battles of the sexes, but not because
there has been a clear winner. Especially in the corner of the field reserved for married
combatants, warfare goes on relentlessly. No end is in sight in The Constant Wife,
by W. S. Maugham, set in London, 1926. The style of the times favored someone bright and
talky like Constance Middleton (played by Kate Burton) and a somewhat baffled, harmless
husband, like John Middleton (played by Michael Cumpsty).
He paid the bills, literally drawing on his capital in the game; she
spent his money fashionably, thus proving them right for each other. Their compatibility
for twelve years has almost depended on them remaining apposite. He goes to exotic places
on business for the empire, this time Japan; she goes to luncheon and hair dressing
appointments; he has seasonal affairs; she takes a young lover for the first time in a
spirit of adventure. They don't talk about their extra partners so much as take their
arrangement for granted.
Constance's sensible mother Mrs. Culver (the glamorous Lynn Redgrave,
not remotely credible in a battleaxe role) understands the game as they never will and
explains its utility in marriage. The institution remains pleasing, she believes, so long
as the partners avoid being together seven nights a week, fifty-three weeks a year.
The Middletons have a plain, logical daughter who wears hideous clothes
and takes notes while waiting in the wings for her turn at the game. She advises her
father, during a blow by blow revelation of his wife's actions in the game, on how to
handle outrage he never feels: to her astonishment, he never intends a divorce. And the
couple enjoy visits from a pretty, effervescent friend, Marie-Louise, also the husband's
lover, who lives only for the game.
Nothing is to be learned from any of this in the way of a theme or
idea, so the burden of entertainment falls on the texture of the talk, most of which is
witty, fast and fun. Maugham followed G.B. Shaw's pattern of dramatizing smart women and
slow(er) men, except that most of Shaw's women were admirable and Maugham's Constance
Middleton is a dodo. She never speaks a word persuading us that she deserves to win out in
this marital combat, as she does. And since neither spouse succeeds in making an
emotional, or philosophical, or (heavens!) moral pitch for the audience's allegiance, this
battlefield in the end is littered with dead cliches. Feminism won its victories long ago.
One trick to dramatizing a dated contest is to pitch debate firmly in
the period before a decision was taken; or better, to pretend the contest remains open
ended. The Constant Wife chooses the latter position, but adheres to it only
fitfully. There is not much new to be said by 1926 about a wife taking a job to earn her
own money. This bit of script falls flat. The plot fares better with its theme of sexual
equity, since that fight obviously varies with character and so invites originality. John
Middleton is stereotypically impervious to his wife's idea of equality; that much comes
out of stock where men tend to be more conservative than women regardless of the issue. At
the final curtain, however, she cheerfully slams the door to join a lover on a trip to
Italy and he cheerfully and atypically agrees to welcome her back to the marital household
in six weeks.
The funniest turn comes before this as the unfaithful husband makes an
absurd, abject apology for accusing his unfaithful wife of infidelity. It's a deliciously
silly moment in which he deserves her condemnation, judges himself to be a wretch, and
leaves the comforts of his wife and home. It's his curtain line.
