Summary
At Tom Otter's house, Mistress Otter berates him out of frustration for his penchant for bear and bullfighting. Dauphine, Truewit, and Clerimont note that Mistress Otter is the true "captain" of the house based on the way she conducts herself. John Daw arrives, and Clerimont convinces him that although Epicene is engaged, she wishes to marry him instead. He instructs Daw to divert La Foole's party guests to Morose's house as a way of winning Epicene's affections. Then, Clerimont tells La Foole that Daw is planning to upend his party, and convinces La Foole to provide even more luxurious food at the celebration in order to upstage Daw.
Meanwhile, Cutbeard finds a parson to marry Morose and Epicene right away. As soon as the marriage is official, Epicene transforms from a quiet and meek young lady to a loud, bossy, and opinionated woman much like Mistress Otter. Morose is appalled, but as soon as he realizes his mistake, the party guests begin to arrive. The women from the Ladies Collegiates come together, led by Lady Haughty and including Mistress Otter. La Foole soon arrives with his embellished display of food while Clerimont and Dauphine arrive with a band to play music. Morose's house becomes host to a raucous celebration, and he is beside himself amidst all the noise.
Analysis
In the third act of the play, the focus shifts to an exploration of gender, specifically gender dynamics between married men and women. When the audience meets Captain Otter, he is immediately compared to his wife, Mistress Otter, who appears to run the house. Mistress Otter berates Captain Otter for his interest in bear-fighting, calling him undignified, and appears to detest her husband and his interests now that she has joined the women's college. Their relationship is a source of comedy for the audience, who would likely have found the marriage between a bossy woman and a distracted man humorous for its inversion of traditional gender roles. Whether the play itself argues in favor of strong-willed, educated, independent women remains ambiguous, precisely because Mistress Otter's treatment of her husband is meant to inspire laughs, thereby undervaluing the concept of women as heads of the household.
More important, however, is that this initial interaction between Mistress Otter and her husband foreshadows the revelation at the end of Act III that Epicene has been pretending to be meek and quiet in order to gain Morose's favor. As soon as their marriage becomes official, Epicene, too, begins criticizing Morose and making demands reminiscent of Mistress Otter. As part of her transformation, she asks Morose if he had wanted to marry a doll instead of a woman, suggesting that his penchant for silence and obedience is absurd, objectifying, and misogynistic. Again, though, the play remains ambiguous as to whether audiences are to interpret Epicene's arguments as proto-feminist (in defense of women as intelligent and outspoken), or whether her loud and controlling behavior is presented as an unfortunate consequence of education and independence. In other words, any laudatory independence Epicene exhibits in this scene is belied by her newly-domineering character that is exaggerated in order to entertain the audience.
