To deny that Teddy and Ruth are "really" married is a common refrain in responses to the play. Aside from their behaviour in the play as well as that of Teddy's family, nothing in the text contradicts the ostensible and putative reality that they are legally married and have three sons. The more outrageous, even horrifying, for the play's original audiences, the words and actions taken by Ruth, Max, and Lenny, the more Teddy protests that they are married, leading some critics to believe that the man doth protest too much. A perceptive reader and viewer of the play would wonder why Teddy would have brought his wife and the mother of his children into such a grotesque menagerie in the first place.