What is the significance of "The Other Two" by Edith Wharton?

"The Other Two" is a comedy of
manners about husbands and a wife and adjustments to society. Edith
Wharton has explored marital themes in other short stories, but some critics believe
this story to be Wharton's most nearly perfect short story in structure and substance.
Other critics consider Wharton's stories colorless unengaging imitations of Henry James'
stories. In "The Other Two" Wharton explores the contrasting ideas of illusion and
belief as well as the related idea of
ethics.

In the story, Waythorn
is under the illusion that his wife behaves with
disinterestedness toward her two ex-husbands, one of whom comes to the Waythorn home to
attend to the ill daughter he shares with his ex-wife who is now Waythorn's wife and one
of whom the Waythorn's meet in social settings. In this scenario, Mrs. Waythorn creates
the illusion, through withholding information, that she is
behaving with disinterest toward her ex-husbands, leading Waythorn to the
belief that her deportment is above
questioning.

Once the illusion is shattered and the belief
discarded, the question of ethics remains: What is the
ethical thing to do when one has three husbands (two of them ex-husbands) who are thrown
together by circumstances? Mrs. Waythorn decides that it is ethical to only speak to
them in social gatherings when directly approached by one--and she decides to serve them
tea. Supposedly, her current husband agrees with this ethic because he sees the humor of
having two of his wife's former husbands in his parlor drinking tea with
him.

Thus the significance of
"The Other Two" is that it examines the social mores and values of the times by
examining an awkward but increasingly common situation in which spouses have multiple
spousal connections, thereby exposing the nature of illusion, belief and
ethics.