Daily Inspiration Quote by William Wycherley

Wycherley’s line lands like a sneer delivered with a bow: polished, performative, and meant to wound. Coming from a Restoration dramatist, it’s less a private belief than a stage-ready provocation, engineered to get a laugh from an audience trained to enjoy cruelty as sophistication. The verb "serve" is the tell. It reduces women to function, not presence; they exist as social devices, deployed to manage men’s time and appetites. That bleak utilitarianism is then twisted by the punchline: women aren’t even granted the dignity of being a temptation. They’re framed as a barrier against "better company" - a phrase that makes misogyny sound like good taste.

The subtext is a status game. In Restoration comedy, "company" is currency: wit, libertinism, and male camaraderie signal belonging to an elite that prides itself on not being taken in by romance. To call other company "better" is to imply that heterosexual attachment is a downgrade, a trap that interrupts the real pleasures of the club: talk, gambling, mistresses, and the performance of masculine freedom. Women become the alibi for men’s boredom and the scapegoat for their lack of self-control.

Context matters: Restoration theater thrived on sexual frankness and cynical portraits of marriage as transaction. The line flatters the rake and reassures the audience that emotional seriousness is for fools. Its intent isn’t subtle persuasion; it’s social sorting, daring you to laugh if you’re in on the joke - and exposing the cost if you’re not.