On épouse tout le monde, excepté sa sœur

“On épouse tout le monde, excepté sa sœur” is Nérine’s compact reply to Cléante’s despair over marrying Nisida. Its comic exaggeration rejects his assumption that poverty, uncertain name, military obscurity, and unequal wealth make marriage impossible. The expression functions less as a literal social rule than as a practical challenge: unless an absolute prohibition stands in the way, love should be tested rather than abandoned in advance.

Dramatic Context

Nérine speaks the maxim after Cléante insists that marriage to Nisida is “almost impossible.” He describes Nisida as young, beautiful, amiable, and the only daughter of a very rich father, while presenting himself as an obscure soldier without fortune and almost without a name. Because circumstances have forbidden him to bear his father’s name, he fears that declaring his love will make it appear that he desires Nisida’s wealth rather than Nisida herself.

The line exposes the difference between Cléante’s reasoning and Nérine’s practical intelligence. Cléante treats every disadvantage as a decisive barrier; Nérine treats marriage as an undertaking that should not be ruled out merely because its conditions are difficult. Her maxim therefore gives the scene its sudden change of register: a long account of poverty and disgrace is answered by a deliberately broad, almost absurd statement of possibility.

Nérine’s Counsel

The maxim belongs to Nérine’s larger principle that one should yield to the heart whenever it is stronger than reason. She asks Cléante to examine himself honestly. If he can forget Nisida, he should return to his regiment, resume his service, and recover through merit the position that fortune has taken from him. If he cannot live without Nisida, he should remain in the household rather than die of separation, reveal who he is, and tell Nisida that he loves her.

Nérine does not merely offer encouragement. She turns emotion into a sequence of actions. She instructs Cléante first to write to his colonel and request a month’s delay, while she undertakes to bring about an explanation between him and Nisida. Her role as confidante is grounded in earlier labor: she alone brought him into the household, enabled him to speak with Nisida, disguised him, and presented him to Arlequin as a secretary. The maxim thus summarizes a continuing method of mediation in which Nérine manages information, timing, and the emotional risks of disclosure.

From Aphorism to Evidence

The expression’s confidence is later supported by signs that Nisida may return Cléante’s love. Nérine reports that she happened to reach the door of Nisida’s cabinet and heard Nisida singing Cléante’s song softly and tenderly while shut away alone. Nérine reasons that when an author is indifferent, a person does not fear praising the work or seclude herself to sing the song in a low voice. What began as a general maxim is therefore given a concrete emotional indication: Nisida’s private behavior makes Cléante’s hope more than a fantasy.

The line also survives the reversals that threaten the lovers. Arlequin orders Cléante to leave the house immediately, yet embraces him, swears eternal friendship, and forbids him to return. The apparent impossibility of the marriage is consequently intensified by separation, but not confirmed. Nérine continues to occupy the position of the person who consoles, prompts speech, and helps keep the household’s relationships from collapsing into silence.

Law, Fortune, and Moral Possibility

The maxim acquires its fullest force when Cléante’s identity is revealed. He explains that his father, the comte de Valcourt, has died in Italie and left his entire fortune to a stranger. He possesses proofs of his identity, and Arlequin recognizes him as the son of his benefactor. The social inequality that Cléante had treated as an almost insurmountable obstacle is suddenly reversed: the fortune legally or morally connected with the family belongs to Cléante.

Yet the reversal does not reduce the expression to a simple promise that wealth solves love’s problems. Arlequin declares that although the family was rich that morning, it must become poor because otherwise they would no longer be honest people. Cléante replies that he has no claim because his father’s marriage was never declared and the law gives him no straightforward right to the property. Arlequin nevertheless rejects legal possession as the final measure of justice. He insists that his heart tells him the fortune is not his and that he cannot remain rich while the benefactor’s son is poor.

Cléante then accepts the fortune only on the condition that it be placed at Nisida’s feet. He asks Arlequin for his daughter, making the recovered inheritance serve not personal enrichment but the marriage that Nérine’s maxim had urged him to pursue. The expression consequently links romantic courage with ethical action: what first appeared to be impossible becomes possible through confession, recognition, restitution, and consent.

Significance

“On épouse tout le monde, excepté sa sœur” is comic in form but structurally serious. It punctures fatalistic reasoning, contrasts Cléante’s anxious self-denial with Nérine’s decisiveness, and establishes a principle by which the plot moves from concealment toward explanation. Its absolute wording is intentionally disproportionate to the particular problem, and that disproportion creates its force: Nisida is not Cléante’s sister, so the supposed impossibility has not yet become a prohibition.

The maxim also anticipates the play’s final moral balance. Marriage is not secured by desire alone; it depends on Nisida’s position, Arlequin’s judgment, Cléante’s disclosure, and the honest handling of inheritance. Nérine’s phrase therefore becomes more than a joke about permissible marriages. It is an argument against surrendering to social fear before the truth has been spoken and the actual obstacles have been tested.