The central character Morose, an egotistical old bachelor with a pathological aversion to noise, proposes to disinherit his nephew Sir Dauphine Eugenie, whom he suspects of ridiculing him. He proposes to do this by marrying and begetting an heir, but in order to do so he must find a woman not given to noise, the 'silent woman' of the title. A completely silent one is found in the lovely Epicoene, but remarkably, after the marriage, she regains the use of her tongue. By way of making up for lost time, Epicoene is anything but silent. She proceeds to torment her husband by turning into a loquacious shrew, and his agony is increased when Dauphine and his friends arrive with a rowdy party of guests and musicians to celebrate the marriage. Driven frantic by the hubbub, and having unsuccessfully sought grounds for divorce from a parson and a canon lawyer (in fact impostors planted by Dauphine, who chatter interminably to no purpose), Morose promises to reinstate his nephew as his heir, with an additional reward, if he can free his uncle of the wife who is now the opposite of what he'd hoped. Whereupon Dauphine pulls off Epicoene's wig and reveals that, unknown to everyone else, including the audience, she is a boy whom he has trained for the part.