Marriage (play)

Marriage (Russian: Женитьба, Zhenit'ba) is a play by the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, which was first published in 1842.

In the opening scene, a civil servant named Ivan Kuzmich Podkolyosin sits alone in his room smoking a pipe and contemplating marriage. He has hired a matchmaker (Fyokla Ivanovna), as was the custom in Russia at the time, to help find him a bride. As the two converse, the audience discovers that Podkolyosin has been in search of a bride for quite some time. The reason for his not being yet married, however, owes to his own indecisiveness rather than the lack of a suitable partner. In fact, Fyokla has found him a nice young woman named Agafya Tikhonovna.

When Podkolyosin's friend Kochkaryov unexpectedly pays a visit and finds Fyokla at Podkolyosin's home, he learns for the first time of his friend's search for a bride. The fact that Podkolyosin has not mentioned it to his friend provides further proof of his indecision. Kochkaryov becomes outraged at Fyokla because she also married him, and his wife and he are unhappy with the marriage. Kochkaryov, after cleverly getting Fyokla to reveal the location of Agafya's home, informs Fyokla that her services are no longer needed and that he will proceed with the matter on his own.

In the next scene, Agafya and her aunt, Arina, discuss the issue of marriage and the matchmaker walks in on them. She informs the two women that several suitors will soon be making appearances at the home. Presumably, Fyokla has just made the rounds of the town in hopes of beating out Kochkaryov and Podkolyosin, as she will not receive any money if the marriage should occur without her help.

Besides Kochkaryov and Podkolyosin, three suitors arrive. The first is Yaichnitsa (which can mean either 'fried eggs' or 'omelet'). Yaichnitsa is overly concerned with the dowry and appears skeptical as to whether Fyokla has told him the truth about it. The second suitor, Anuchkin, at first thinks that Yaichnitsa is Agafya's father. The third, Zhevakin, a retired navy lieutenant, has a detailed story about the time his squadron spent in Sicily, where, amazingly enough, no one speaks Russian. At this point, Podkolyosin and Kochkaryov arrive and everyone sits down to chat. Yaichnitsa almost immediately demands that Agafya make a decision, which makes her so uncomfortable that she leaves the room.

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