Whether for love or ambition, for parental approval or reasons of state, marriage has complicated the lives of all who enter into it. First performed in 1671, Dryden's Marriage ̉ la Mode portrays the motives high and low that make marriage the pivotal institution of a nation. Like Dryden's best tragicomedies, Marriage a la Mode has a double plot. The hopes that marriage excites and the regrets it suffers, the possibilities it opens and the opportunities...