marycatelli (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marycatelli) wrote2013-07-08 02:13 pm
marycatelli) wrote2013-07-08 02:13 pm
first comes marriage
Got thrown out of a pseudo-medieval-setting book recently. . . the heroine didn't want to get married. Her friend laughed at the very notion, but no, she didn't want to. . .
And this in a culture where she might as well have said that she didn't want to curtsey to the king.
The odd thing was that her mother kept trying to marry her off to unpleasant old widowers, and she probably couldn't have married without her mother's leave. Yet it kept returning to objecting to marriage. And not with any fear of childbirth.
Other books I've read had her fear domestic tyranny. None of them seem to doubt that avoiding matrimony was the way to pull that off. As if your mother didn't keep you under her thumb. As if your stepmother was not a real possibility. As if your sister-in-law couldn't be as much a pest as any husband. At least you would be mistress of your own household. (One reason why clergy fought tooth-and-nail against the law allowing you to marry your dead spouse's sibling was that a lot of unmarried Victorian women had to take refuge with their married sisters, and they did not want the master of the house to think she was sexually available.)
Nor do these heroines ever considering a living mother-in-law to be a liability. All right, they probably won't face Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law, who, you may not know, tried to have her two children and Sleeping Beauty herself killed so she could eat them. Or the mother-in-law in Six Swans, who kidnapped her grandchildren at birth and smeared her daughter-in-law's mouth with blood so she could claim she killed and ate them. Still problems less drastic than that could be unpleasant.
To be sure, there were eras in which people would try to evade marriage. Women were less able to evade than men -- but then, a lot of pressure could be applied to men, too. Plato in his Laws discusses the proper way to enact laws, the better sort using both influence and force, by justifying as well as prescribing penalties.
That there should be a law requiring men to marry he takes for granted.
Even when there were no laws, there could be plenty of pressure.
And this in a culture where she might as well have said that she didn't want to curtsey to the king.
The odd thing was that her mother kept trying to marry her off to unpleasant old widowers, and she probably couldn't have married without her mother's leave. Yet it kept returning to objecting to marriage. And not with any fear of childbirth.
Other books I've read had her fear domestic tyranny. None of them seem to doubt that avoiding matrimony was the way to pull that off. As if your mother didn't keep you under her thumb. As if your stepmother was not a real possibility. As if your sister-in-law couldn't be as much a pest as any husband. At least you would be mistress of your own household. (One reason why clergy fought tooth-and-nail against the law allowing you to marry your dead spouse's sibling was that a lot of unmarried Victorian women had to take refuge with their married sisters, and they did not want the master of the house to think she was sexually available.)
Nor do these heroines ever considering a living mother-in-law to be a liability. All right, they probably won't face Sleeping Beauty's mother-in-law, who, you may not know, tried to have her two children and Sleeping Beauty herself killed so she could eat them. Or the mother-in-law in Six Swans, who kidnapped her grandchildren at birth and smeared her daughter-in-law's mouth with blood so she could claim she killed and ate them. Still problems less drastic than that could be unpleasant.
To be sure, there were eras in which people would try to evade marriage. Women were less able to evade than men -- but then, a lot of pressure could be applied to men, too. Plato in his Laws discusses the proper way to enact laws, the better sort using both influence and force, by justifying as well as prescribing penalties.
The laws relating to marriage naturally come first, and therefore we may begin with them. The simple law would be as follows:—A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five; if he do not, he shall be fined or deprived of certain privileges. The double law would add the reason why: Forasmuch as man desires immortality, which he attains by the procreation of children, no one should deprive himself of his share in this good. He who obeys the law is blameless, but he who disobeys must not be a gainer by his celibacy; and therefore he shall pay a yearly fine, and shall not be allowed to receive honour from the young.
That there should be a law requiring men to marry he takes for granted.
Even when there were no laws, there could be plenty of pressure.
As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest
In one of thine, from that which thou departest;
And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestow'st
Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.
Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:
Without this, folly, age and cold decay:
If all were minded so, the times should cease
And threescore year would make the world away.
Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,
Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:
Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;
Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:
She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby
Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.
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No, I mean literal menage a trois. Fundamentally, a menage a trois is three people living closely together. Sex isn't required for this.
I've just realized something embarassing. I've confused The Moonstone with The Woman in White. The three characters from The Woman in White in question are Walter Hartright, Laura Fairlie, and Marian Holcombe.
Walter falls in love with Laura, they wed, and both live with each other and with Marian, who is Laura's half-sister. In addition to Walter's love for Laura, Laura is very strongly-attached to Marian, and Walter feels an intense friendship for Marian. I'm well-aware of the fact that strong, even romantically-strong non-sexual friendships were more common in Victorian times than they are today, and this was especially the case where kinship was involved, but ... well, read the book. The emotions involved just seem very strong, that's all.
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(1) Marian's "mannishness," coupled with her very strong attachment to her half-sister Laura, suggests a possible lesbian relationship in the triangle (though again: romantic does not have to mean sexual), and
(2) The intensity of Walter's friendship with Marian suggests that Walter might be viewing her a bit homo-erotically, as if she were a schoolboy crush who would be all the more emotionally-acceptable to him subconsciously because he knows she's actually a woman.
Finally,
(3) It doesn't help that Laura's more than a bit weak and passive, and all three of them are in a dangerous situation, creating an emotional dynamic in which both Walter and Marian have to cooperate to protect Laura, which
(a) puts Marian in the situation of Laura's "protector," which is the masculine-romantic position, and
(b) forces Walter and Marian into even closer comradeship than would normally be the case even given their strong natural friendship.
The first time I read the book, I didn't quite get this all, though I did notice there was something odd about the relationship of both Walter and Laura to Marian. (To be precise, I kind of wondered why Frank preferred Laura to Marian, but then I've always been personally attracted to tomboys over girly-girls). I then had the possible alternative interpretation pointed out to me on TVTropes at
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheWomanInWhite?from=Main.TheWomanInWhite
specifically
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Polyamory
Whatever the case, it counts as a happy ending for all three concerned: if it's all platonic save between Walter and Laura, then Marian gets to live with her beloved half-sister and Fire-Forged Friend Walter; if it is sexual, well, then it goes on behind closed doors and they're all happy that way too.