Both women seem ideally matched to their fiancés. Gwendolen is very no-nonsense and straightforward like Jack. She believes in appearances, upper-class snobbery, correct behavior, and the ability to discuss, ad nauseam, the trivial. Jack too is practical and takes his responsibilities quite seriously. While he has a sense of humor, he also realizes — especially in the country — that he must maintain a proper image and pay his bills. Cecily and Algernon are both guided by passion and immediate gratification. More emotional than their counterparts, they pursue life with a vengeance, aiming for what they desire and oblivious to the consequences. Both couples indulge in witty epigrams and are perfectly matched.
While Wilde spends most of his play satirizing Victorian ideals of courtship and marriage, he gets the last laugh with his female characters. Despite their positions in society as victims of the machinations of men, marriage contracts and property, the women are the strong characters who are firmly in control. Wilde provides two female characters who lack Lady Bracknell's ruthlessness, but who have the strength and practical sense that the men lack.
