Class Business

Is there a considerable shift in the class relations/tensions between the plays we've read before and The Man of Mode? From what I can remember, comments surrounding class-specific behavior, appearance, and modes of expression were previously introduced by and aimed toward those of a similar class - generally upper - poking fun at one another for appearing of a lower class, reminding them of when they were so, or that they can easily become so. Even comments directed at a social inferior seemed to have less severity than they do in this play. What seems to me to mark the difference is, for the earlier plays, a fear or anxiety about one's own perhaps unstable class affinity. Whereas, for The Man of Mode, there appears to be a more stable and concrete class separation that tends to produce feelings of hatred or disgust of the inferior classes rather than feelings of fear or anxiety that one appears, was, or can become a member of such a class. Is this true?


Also, I have a number of historical questions: How common would it be to see masked women on the street? What was the developing social understanding of male/male homosexuality? Or, what was the developing social understanding of male/male friendships? Everyone seems to be off to do some kind of 'business' all the time... what sort of 'business'? There seems to be this developing mystery surrounding what men do when out on 'business'. Why?