Falstaff decides to send the women identical love letters and asks his servants – Pistol and Nym – to deliver them to the wives.

The Host of the Garter Inn prevents this duel by telling each man a different meeting place, causing much amusement for himself, Justice Shallow, Page and others.

The "merry wives" are not interested in the aging, overweight Falstaff as a suitor; however, for the sake of their own amusement and to gain revenge for his indecent assumptions towards them both, they pretend to respond to his advances.

When the jealous Ford returns to try and catch his wife with the knight, the wives have the basket taken away and the contents (including Falstaff) dumped into the river.

He is convinced that the wives are just "playing hard to get" with him, so he continues his pursuit of sexual advancement, with its attendant capital and opportunities for blackmail.

Ford tries once again to catch his wife with the knight but ends up hitting the "old woman", whom he despises and takes for a witch, and throwing her out of his house.

Eventually the wives tell their husbands about the series of jokes they have played on Falstaff, and together they devise one last trick which ends up with the Knight being humiliated in front of the whole town.

They then dress several of the local children, including Anne and William Page, as fairies and get them to pinch and burn Falstaff to punish him.

Slender, Caius, and Fenton steal away their brides-to-be during the chaos, and the rest of the characters reveal their true identities to Falstaff.

Eventually they all leave together and Mistress Page even invites Falstaff to come with them: "let us every one go home, and laugh this sport o'er by a country fire; Sir John and all".

[3] These facts led commentators starting with Edmond Malone in 1790 to suggest that the play was written and performed for the Order of the Garter festival.

[4] William Green suggests that the play was drawn up when George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, as Lord Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare's company, was elected Order of the Garter in April 1597.

The Garter theory is only speculation, but it is consistent with a story first recorded by John Dennis in 1702 and Nicholas Rowe in 1709: that Shakespeare was commanded to write the play by Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to see Falstaff in love.

"[6] Rowe wrote that Elizabeth "was so well pleased with that admirable character of Falstaff, in the two parts of Henry the Fourth, that she commanded him to continue it for one play more, and to shew him in love.

"[6] T. W. Craik suggests that these stories may simply be fantasies occasioned by the Quarto's title page which says of the play "As it hath diuers times Acted...Both before her Maiestie, and else-where.

One is that Pistol and Shallow are introduced as new characters in Henry IV, Part 2, but in The Merry Wives their connection to Falstaff is taken for granted.

Also, there are no references to any of the major events from Falstaff's 15th-century exploits from the history plays, such as the rebellion (Henry IV, Part 1 & 2), in Merry Wives.

Craik suggests that Shakespeare was forced to interrupt work on Henry IV, Part 2, having written most of it, because The Merry Wives had to be completed quickly.

It appears that the joke in V,v,85–90 is that Oldcastle/Falstaff incriminates himself by calling out the first letter of his name, "O, O, O!," when his fingertips are singed with candles – which of course works for "Oldcastle" but not "Falstaff."

"[12] He adds: No longer either witty in himself or the cause of wit in other men, this Falstaff would make me lament a lost glory if I did not know him to be a rank impostor.

"[14] Key themes of Merry Wives include love and marriage, jealousy and revenge, social class and wealth.

In 1824 Frederick Reynolds included Merry Wives in his series of operatic adaptations, with music by Henry Bishop.