Fin heureuse ou fin de la fête ? Les deux faces du mariage dans la comédie romaine

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In comoediae palliatae, sententiae about marriage must be explained within the broader framework of comic conventions, particularly those of the uxor dotata type: Plautus’ comedies (and, to a lesser extent, Terence’s ones) play in various ways with the topic figure of the rich and commanding wife. These sententiae don’t allow us to conclude that in Roman comedy is found an uniformly negative view of marriage, even less since the tyrannical wife type co-exists with a quite different picture of the marriage as a ceremony and as a party: although the uxor is the opposite of the meretrix and of the carnal pleasures, the final nuptiae are part of the party pleasures and are combined with the comic tricks in order to permit the fun of the comic show. The words chosen by Plautus and Terence to talk about marriage and wives allow us to understand that these seemingly conflicting views of marriage co-exist because of the conventions about comic personae and plot.