Jane lived a quiet life but the wicked ways of the world touched her and informed her writing. And when I refer to wicked ways I am not suggesting the 18th Century relaxed attitudes to sexuality, where one in three women were pregnant as they walked up the marriage aisle in the 18th century. 1. I mean the wickedness of inequality, hypocrisy and double standards. Women without dowries (or women’s shares), women in lowly social classes, women in loveless marriages and women who were courted for their fortune were in unhappy positions that Austen explored many times in her novels. Continue reading
Tag Archives: infidelity
Prudishness
Filed under Feminism, Uncategorized
Is Austen a fan of the double standard?
Allegory of Love, I: Infidelity (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Women fall from grace when caught for being unfaithful while men tend to be able to get off guilt free in the Austen Six. The fact that this is the way Austen presents it might make us think that this is the way she thinks it should be. Not so. The fact that she highlights the differences of the relative treatment for the same misdemeanour surely shows that she is revealing the unfairness of it all.
When Typical-Teen-LydiaBennet, in Pride and Prejudice elopes with Wickham, Continue reading
Filed under Feminism
Austen's Guide to Happiness 