The Belle's Stratagem still remains Hannah Cowley's most popular play to date, and is very "before her time" in writing strong and intelligent female characters. During its stage life thirty editions were published.[7]
In The Belle’s Stratagem, the topic of social injustices in marriage is blatant, the play mostly focusing on how women are supposed to be docile in most social settings. To break up this social narrative, Cowley creates female characters who are sharp and witty, women who know what they want and are determined to get it. Around the time of this play, marriage began to change and the idea of marrying for love instead of duty was more prominent.[8] Cowley uses this play to comment on social constructs of marriage, and how romantic love is becoming accepted and sought after by women looking towards marriage. Cowley sets the audience up to ask big questions about equality in marriage, because if Letitia is smart enough to trick Doricourt, she should also be trusted with decision making within the marriage.
Cowley presents her female characters as virtuous and smart. She uses characters who are high in social status, and she does not often make people the butt of jokes. Her comedic formula is witty and reaches for high ideals, and this can be shown in how she writes her female characters. Letitia is brilliant. She comes up with a plot to prove to her fiancé that she can be as flirtatious as the European women, as well as be virtuous when doing so. She warns Doricourt to “beware of imprudent curiosity” when he tells her to take off her mask so it is obvious Letitia does not pine for his affection, because she knows she does not need to. She also does not sit back and let her fiancé set her aside. She does something about it, which is very admirable for a female character of this time period.
