The Flawed Expectations of Marriage
Jane Austen’s Persuasion deftly explores the complexities of marriage through it's characters. The novel displays the marital values of its time through the character opinions and desires for what society deemed as an idyllic marriage. Persuasion illustrates the implications of marriages that follow the expectations of gender roles and the expectation of social and financial advantage.
Persuasion leaves no doubt regarding the standard roles of men and women from it’s time. A man manages finances, legalities, and public affairs. Women are viewed as the domestic partner and are responsible for private affairs, and a woman is viewed as a desirable wife if she is capable of meeting her future husband’s needs. …show more content…
Sir Walter’s late wife, Lady Elliot, is one of the first women to be introduced in the novel as Sir Walter reads over his family history. Lady Elliot is summarized as “...an excellent woman… She had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years, and though not the very happiest in the world herself, had found enough in her duties…” (Austen, 6). Her introduction as an excellent woman and her eulogy of devotion to her husband imply the importance of a woman to be a dutiful wife, lest she be remembered as a woman lacking in character, despite how discontent or unhappy she may feel in her marriage as a result. As observed by writers and historians, the teachings and education received by women were meant to condition them for their future role as a wife. In Reflections of the Female Sex, With Suggestions for Its Improvement (1798) English philanthropist Priscilla Wakefield describes how the best years of improvement in a woman’s life are spent in preparation for marriage. Wakefield opens her article by stating “In the education of females, the …show more content…
Sir Walter’s highest hope is for his beloved and eldest daughter Elizabeth to marry well. His disappointment in his youngest, Mary, stems from her failure to marry a man of higher rank than her husband Charles. Sir Walter is indifferent to his daughter Anne altogether except to approve of Captain Wentworth when he and Anne are engaged, an approval based on his superior looks and wealth. Sir Walter’s fractured relationships with his youngest daughter, if not with Anne as well, lies in her failure to meet the marital expectation placed upon
Jane Austen’s Persuasion deftly explores the complexities of marriage through it's characters. The novel displays the marital values of its time through the character opinions and desires for what society deemed as an idyllic marriage. Persuasion illustrates the implications of marriages that follow the expectations of gender roles and the expectation of social and financial advantage.
Persuasion leaves no doubt regarding the standard roles of men and women from it’s time. A man manages finances, legalities, and public affairs. Women are viewed as the domestic partner and are responsible for private affairs, and a woman is viewed as a desirable wife if she is capable of meeting her future husband’s needs. …show more content…
Sir Walter’s late wife, Lady Elliot, is one of the first women to be introduced in the novel as Sir Walter reads over his family history. Lady Elliot is summarized as “...an excellent woman… She had humoured, or softened, or concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for seventeen years, and though not the very happiest in the world herself, had found enough in her duties…” (Austen, 6). Her introduction as an excellent woman and her eulogy of devotion to her husband imply the importance of a woman to be a dutiful wife, lest she be remembered as a woman lacking in character, despite how discontent or unhappy she may feel in her marriage as a result. As observed by writers and historians, the teachings and education received by women were meant to condition them for their future role as a wife. In Reflections of the Female Sex, With Suggestions for Its Improvement (1798) English philanthropist Priscilla Wakefield describes how the best years of improvement in a woman’s life are spent in preparation for marriage. Wakefield opens her article by stating “In the education of females, the …show more content…
Sir Walter’s highest hope is for his beloved and eldest daughter Elizabeth to marry well. His disappointment in his youngest, Mary, stems from her failure to marry a man of higher rank than her husband Charles. Sir Walter is indifferent to his daughter Anne altogether except to approve of Captain Wentworth when he and Anne are engaged, an approval based on his superior looks and wealth. Sir Walter’s fractured relationships with his youngest daughter, if not with Anne as well, lies in her failure to meet the marital expectation placed upon