The Role Of Ignorance In The Farmer's Bride

It is believed that in early nineteenth century man could marry girls as young as twelve, though it was less common than in past generations. Still, women did not have the rights that men had, and they often were not at liberty to choose a spouse. Rather, their family chose a spouse for them, “possible and allowable matrimonial relationships were constrained through a discursive web of legally accepted forms and linguistically defined categories” (Kapell, Matthew Wilhelm, 43). “The Farmer’s Bride” by Charlotte Mew talks about innocence and ignorance, a girl that is too young to marry and think about sex with a man she barely knows. A smiling and beautiful girl whom the farmer has chosen because she will make a good farm wife. Unfortunately, her childish innocence is equated by the farmer’s indifference toward the afraid girl and his ignorance of a woman’s needs and humanity. He chooses her as he would choose his cows, seeing no need to try to gain her love. Having no concern for her feelings, he expects her simply …show more content…
It is curious that the farmer does not, even for a moment, question why she ran away. He doesn’t stop to think about what she must have been feeling as she moved from child to wife. He did not wonder if she was afraid, angry or sad. Rather, he focuses on his own feelings, that he was “all in a shiver and a scare” (17) when he couldn’t find her. Then he says, “We caught her, fetched her home at last and turned the key upon her, fast” (18-19). The words he uses to describe the way that they took her and brought her home makes it sound like he is talking about an animal rather than a human. He did not find her and talk to her to ask her why she had run. He did not speak gently to her or try to make her feel comfortable. Rather, he simply “fetched” her home and locked her up like he would a runaway