The Mother-in-Law
A young Athenian married against his inclination has begun to love his wife when a trip abroad brings him home to find she has gone back to her parents, and every man in the play assumes his mother drove her out. The older woman takes the blame without arguing, the courtesan he gave up is accused of holding him, and the household's women turn out to know a great deal more than anybody has asked them. It failed twice in performance, once to a rope-dancer and once to a rumour of gladiators, and Terence's surviving prologue is a complaint about audiences.
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Attributes
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Symbol / motif
Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 73% · 17 shared
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- 49% · 11 shared