Women are now so necessary to stage performances that it is odd to find arguments gravely set forth in favour of their presence. The reasons assigned for introducing women were that men failed to act women’s parts satisfactorily; that boys were no more suitable than girls, and some of the “boys” were middle-aged men, who could not properly impersonate young maidens. When in the reign of Charles II. patents were granted to Killigrew and Davenant for their theatres, the following regulations appeared-- “And forasmuch as many plays formerly acted do contain several profane, obscene, and scurrilous passages, and the women’s parts therein have been acted by men in the habits of women at which some have taken offence; for the preventing of these abuses for the future we do strictly charge, command and enjoin that from henceforth no new plays shall be acted by either of the said companies containing any passages offensive to piety and good manners, nor any old or revived play containing any such offensive passages as aforesaid, until the same shall be corrected and purged by the said masters or governors of the said respective companies from all such offensive and scandalous passages as aforesaid. And we do likewise permit and give leave that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies from this time to come may be performed by women, so long as these recreations which by reason of the abuses aforesaid were scandalous and offensive may by such reformation be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and instructive representations of human life, by such of our good subjects as shall resort to see the same.” The character of the plays acted in the seventeenth century fitted the temper of the times. Wycherley, Congreve, Mrs. Aphra Behn, and their brothers and sisters in the craft were not too outspoken for the taste of that day. Evelyn, it is true, was a severe censor, but he was a man of the world who had travelled and seen many things. “In London,” he says, “there were more wicked and obscene plays permitted than in all the world besides.” And this, too, in Lent, which added much to the offence.