The play is a satirical commentary on Spanish social norms of the time and has since become part of the repertoire.
[1] 37,000 people saw the play performed during the 26 days it ran at Madrid's Teatro de la Cruz, a figure equivalent to around 25% of the population of the Spanish capital during the period.
[2] A rich, elderly, bachelor (Diego) from Madrid and his servant, Simón, have traveled to the city of Guadalajara to escort a poor 16-year-old girl (Francisca) and her mother back to the capital.
Diego has been looking for a wife with whom he can share friendship and mutual respect; he says that impassioned love is too emotional to be well thought out.
It is revealed that Francisca has fallen in love over the summer with a young man named Félix, in spite of living in a convent with her aunt.
She starts to cry because she feels so torn between her filial duties and her great love for Félix.
However, Calamocha cannot reveal that Félix has come for personal reasons, and Simón has been charged to keep the wedding a secret, so each man pretends not to understand the other's questions.
In the middle of the night, Carlos plays music in the street so that Francisca will hear him, and he throws a letter for her through the window.
However, the male characters trick others also, such as when Calamocha and Simón are attempting to conceal their own purposes for having come to Alcalá, or when Diego pretends that he doesn't know about the relationship between Francisca and Carlos in order to find out how she really feels.
However, Moratín was commenting on the social institutions of his own day in Spain, compared to which his ideas are positively enlightened.
Also, by having the happy ending be that Francisca gets to choose her husband, Moratín advocates free choice for women, which was a fairly radical viewpoint for his time.
Rita is often the bearer of lights, both because that is the realistic job of a servant and also because she usually knows the true nature of different situations.