# Mrs. Millamant — The Way of the World character guide

> Mrs. Millamant in The Way of the World by William Congreve.

**Role:** major

**Also known as:** Millamant, Madam Millamant

**First appearance:** 0006-act-i

## Snapshot

A celebrated beauty and heiress who will consider marriage only on her own outrageous terms, Millamant turns courtship into a battle of wits she intends to win.

## Who they are

Millamant is the prize of the play's marriage market, pursued by Mirabell, proposed to Sir Wilfull, and watched over by her aunt, yet she treats the whole business as an occasion for brilliant conditions. She refuses the cant of wifely endearments, demands her closet inviolate and her tea-table sovereign, and insists she and her husband remain 'as strange as if married a great while, and as well-bred as if not married at all.' Her wit is genuine and her independence real, which is why the question of whether she can be loved without being owned drives the middle of the comedy.

## Links

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