The way of the world

MILLAMANT: Vanity! No—I'll fly and be followed to the last moment; though I am upon the very verge of matrimony, I expect you should solicit me as much as if I were wavering at the grate of a monastery, with one foot over the threshold. I'll be solicited to the very last; nay, and afterwards. Oh, I hate a lover that can dare to think he draws a moment's air independent on the bounty of his mistress. There is not so impudent a thing in nature as the saucy look of an assured man confident of success: the pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatical an air. Ah, I'll never marry, unless I am first made sure of my will and pleasure. I'll lie a-bed in a morning as long as I please. And d'ye hear, I won't be called names after I'm married; positively I won't be called names—Ay, as "wife," "spouse," "my dear," "joy," "jewel," "love," "sweet-heart," and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar—I shall never bear that. Good Mirabell, don't let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis; nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and whispers, and then never be seen there together again, as if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another ever after. Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let us be very strange and well-bred. Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while, and as well-bred as if we were not married at all. I must be at liberty to pay and receive visits to and from whom I please; to write and receive letters, without interrogatories or wry faces on your part; to wear what I please, and choose conversation with regard only to my own taste; to have no obligation upon me to converse with wits that I don't like, because they are your acquaintance, or to be intimate with fools, because they may be your relations. Come to dinner when I please, dine in my dressing-room when I'm out of humor, without giving a reason. To have my closet inviolate; to be sole empress of my tea-table, which you must never presume to approach without first asking leave. And lastly, wherever I am, you shall always knock at the door before you come in. These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.

Analysis

To me this extract seems like a woman who lives in a world where women are trapped, she doesn’t want to be trapped “the way of the world” this shows that she cannot do anything about it and that’s just the way it is. She wants to be free to make her own choices and do what she wants to do “No—I'll fly” this metaphor shows she is a powerful woman possibly quite young and naïve thinking that she will change things, this empowers the reader (especially if the reader is a woman). 
She almost laughs at the names married women get “"jewel," "love," "sweet-heart," and the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so fulsomely familiar” she sounds disgusted at the fact that as soon as you are married you are labelled with these names she finds them unbearable and horrific.  She sounds quite jealous of men “to have no obligation upon me to converse with wits that I don't like, because they are your acquaintance” she despises the fact that women have to follow their men and do whatever their men say just because they are a man and she a woman, this shows the diversity between men and women in the 1700s years but it shows this through a woman of that eras point of view, I like the fact that she opens up her hatred of “the way of the world” through her writing. The fact that she writes it possibly instead of saying it to somebody shows that men still have that power over her, because she can’t say it and she can only write it makes the reader feel quite sympathetic towards women in the 1700s to have lived under men’s rule and not be able to do anything about it.

She compares the relationship she may have to have with the relationships of others and states that they will all go the same way “like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis; nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and whispers, and then never be seen there together again, as if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another ever after.” She mimics the others relationships by being very sarcastic but quite blunt in what she says. She makes it out as if she has seen a million relationships and they have all gone the same way and they all will, almost like it is a curse placed upon men and women to never truly have a happy marriage. This gives the reader an insight into what marriage really was like in the 1700s and that most of the time it was quite unhappy marriages possibly making the reader greatful that the times have changed so much now that we are lucky that we can choose what we do with our lives and who we spend it with.