Millamant and Mirabell, as coquette and beu, engage in the witty sparring typical of the lover's in Comgreve's Restoration comedies. However, their discussion of marriage strikes an unsually serious note. What is their concept of marriage? How does this conception function within the play's moral scheme.
             Millamant and Mirabell are the ideal couple in Congreve's play. Their relationship expresses the writers' view of an ideal marriage, which, at the time the play was written, was perceived as a rather revolutionary idea in a world dominated by male interests. The couple's witty dialogue of marriage serves as a kind of pre-nuptual agreement, but at the same time satyrizes such agreements.
             Their affair is an oasis of honesty and true love in an environment dictated by social conventions. Millamant's and Mirabell's conversation deals with the true essence and explores the depths of the concept of marriage. Both of them abandon the ettiquet of pre-nuptual agreements to reach the core of the matter. This means that a happy and rewarding marriage can come true only if mutual respect for one another's liberty, privacy and personality exists. The most challenging difficulty in a marriage is to achieve harmony among such contradictive issues as freedom and commitment.
             Eventhough " The Way Of The World'' is a comedy, this witty conversation between Mirabell and Millamant in act IV, brings forth some serious aspects of marriage while at the same time, through the use of language, satyrizes the whole concept. Their use of legal terminology to discuss something primarily romantic is definitely ironic. Words like "item", "imprimis", "covenant", in addition to the general structure of Mirabell's demands, seem improper for romance and function ironically satyrizing pre-nuptual agreements, which normally dealt with property issu
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