The symbolic significance of exchanging Miniatures in Behn’s The Rover. In a pivotal scene in Behn’s The Rover, A portrait of Angellica (and two miniature copies) are hung against the balcony. It is at this moment that the price of Angellica’s body is defined, “A Thousand Crowns a month” [p. 30]. Through the metaphor of the exchange of miniature pictures, Behn criticises the marriage market of upper classed women in the seventeenth century, physically depicting the commodification, and fetishization, of women as they are advertised for public consumption. In this essay I will explore the significance of the exchange of miniatures for money, their symbolism for male ownership of women, and the thus symptomatic sexual violence omnipresent throughout the text. Emphasising the objectification and ownership of women, Willmore’s relationship with Angellica is centred around the exchange of her miniature. Behn blatantly verbalises the contract made to exchange women for money as Belvile describes Angellica as “A famous Curtezan that’s to be sold,” [p.30] instantly likening her worth to that of the picture and referencing to the inhumanity of the marriage market. When Willmore obtains the miniature, he “gazes on the picture” and “turns from the picture” [p.30], in parallel, he “holds [Angellica], looks on her, and pauses” then “turns her away from him” [p.38]. It appears that Willmore transposes his actions towards the miniature onto Angellica as Behn “criticises the commodification of women by linking the movement of her props to the movement of her female bodies” (Bender, 2007). The use of the verb “turn” emphasises how Angellica’s becomes inanimate under Willmore’s control, sinking into the role of a prop just as the miniature is. Acknowledging the indifference between Angellica’s autonomy and that of her miniature, Bruster comments that Behn created a similar effect between male and female actors on stage as male actors “possess, trade, lose, find, conceal, and evaluate them” (Bruster, 2002), turning the female actors into props themselves. To this extent it appears that the exchange of the miniature is no longer a metaphor for the exchange of women, but rather a catalyst for threat to the female body. In analysing the exchange of miniatures as a threat to the female body, the exchange of Florinda’s miniature to Belvile, and its proceeding circulation, seems vital. As soon as Belvile shows Blunt and Willmore the miniature, Florinda’s assumed autonomy and liberty is negated, and her body henceforth lies in the control of whomever has access to it. The publication of the miniature alone speaks to a certain loss of privacy as Florinda’s private self, visual and identity, are exposed not only giving the men access to her- metaphorically- but also giving them a certain power in changing and controlling her identity through their own perception. This breach of her private world is emphasised in a stark attack on the commodification of women through Willmore and Blunt’s response as Behn heightens the initial verbal breach to a violently sexual one. As the men plan to rape Florinda, the scene bears a familiarity as their plans to circulate her body parallel them circulating her miniature. Willmore is the first to hold her miniature and thus also wishes to be the first to rape her: “Will. Nay, hold there, Colonel, I’ll go first. Fred. Nay, no Dispute, Ned and I have the property of her. Will. Damn Property—then we’ll draw Cuts. [Belv. goes to whisper Will.] Nay, no Corruption, good Colonel: come, the longest Sword carries her. — [They all draw, forgetting Don Pedro, being a Spaniard, had the longest. Blunt. I yield up my Interest to you Gentlemen, and that will be Revenge sufficient. Will. The Wench is yours— (To Ped.) Pox of his Toledo, I had forgot that. Fred. Come, Sir, I’ll conduct you to the Lady.” [p. 89] The crude inuendo of the longest sword almost appears to trivialise the forthcoming sexual violence and paired with the possessive statements: “I have property of her” and “the Wench is yours,” Florinda’s transformation into a prop rather than a character becomes indisputable further proving the role of the exchange of the miniature as a catalyst; a symbol of patriarchal control. However, the centralisation of props in relations seems explicit to inequal gender relations led by lust and violence rather than love as the relationship between Hellena and Willmore evades the exchange of miniatures. Hellena’s refusal to exchange a miniature saves her from the patriarchal control of women allowing her to maintain her autonomy despite Wilmore’s controlling and sexually violent nature. As an audience, we are rather suspecting of Hellena’s independence as she seems less occupied with finding a husband “I had rather be a Nun, than be oblig’d to marry as you wou’d have me,” [19] and instead wishes to explore her “world of youth” instead of instantly being fed from her “sheltered childhood” to a “cloistered adulthood” (Morris, 2008) and thus it is no surprise that she does not circulate miniatures. In order to emphasise Hellena’s remaining control of herself: her body and her future, Behn’s concludes the play with her asking for Willmore to marry her. In this twist of the Comic convention Willmore and Hellena’s marriage can be read as feminist as she at no point becomes a prop to be possessed or exchanged. Arguably, Behn does this to signify the symbolic significance of the miniatures by portraying a safer, feminist relationship in their absence. Therefore, I would argue that not all relationships are centred around the exchange of objects, however, in the cases that they do, the exchange holds symbolic significance in the text as it is used to echo the exchange of women for money or status in the marriage market and thus criticise the commodification and fetishization of women. Behn further suggests that this results in sexual violence which she epitomizes by scripting the female actors to behave as props after the exchange flagrantly depicting the inhumanity of gender inequality in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.