The Marriage Contracts (also known by the titles The Marriage and The Bachelor Auction) [Gogol] began writing them in 1833. In Rome, he gives them their definitive form and sends them to Petersburg, where they were first performed in December 1842.

The subject of this two-act comedy is simple: indecisive and sluggish bachelor, the hero of the play, Podkoliosin, is persuaded ‒ first by a matchmaker, then by a friend ‒ to propose marriage to the daughter of a wealthy merchant. The groom and friend go to the house of the future father-in-law, where other suitors have gathered. Thanks to the ingenuity of his friend, Podkoliosin becomes the most favored of all; everything goes smoothly until the last moment when our hero is overcome by a deadly fear of marriage and, not knowing how else to escape, jumps out the window and runs away...

In The Marriage Contracts, Gogol satirizes the new order of the petty bourgeoisie that had just begun to take shape after the reforms of Tsar Alexander I. Strange, monomaniacal characters, with paradoxical impulses, move in an absurd space. He reflects, as through a distorted mirror, human reality.

I put characters on stage in comedic situations to slightly entertain my deep melancholy. However, the spectators must understand that by laughing at my heroes, they are laughing at me, because within them I have transferred my own muck.

Gogol