QCQ #2 – 1/30/23

Quote: 

“Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourses. – These are nothing – and worse than nothing – snares and wiles of the temper, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction. Principle is the first thing, after all; and next to that good sense, respectability, and moderate wealth. If you should marry the handsomest, and most accomplished and superficially agreeable man in the world, you little know the misery that would overwhelm you, if, after all, you should find him to be a worthless reprobate, or even an impractical fool”(112).

Comment: 

This quote gave me a strong feeling of foreshadowing the events of Helen’s future marriage, which seems to prove true. Yet, moving out of the confines of the plot, I saw an opening into what women considered when talk of marriage arose. Helen’s aunt is her mother figure for her, and because Helen’s age of 18 is mentioned, we can deduce that it is about that age when society felt women should start thinking of marrying. Remembering the laws surrounding marriage from the Bodichon reading, what her aunt is relaying might feel quite cautionary and too serious from Helen’s perspective; knowing how much of a woman’s autonomy is given up after marriage in the eyes of the law it makes perfect sense for mothers or women authority figures to engrain such a cautionary mindset in young women.

Question: 

This quote also made me think of a part in Barbra Leigh Smith’s remarks section where she says, “It is always said, even by those who support the existing law, that it is in fact never acted upon by men of good feeling. That is true; but the very admission condemns the law, and it is not right that the good feeling of men should be all that a woman can look to for simple justice. This is the usual argument to support all bad laws” (9). I wondered how we might extend the work Brontë is laying out for us here, that women must be cautious and consider men when marrying not for looks, accomplishments, or even love but as this type of cover against the law. If women have no legal recognition after marriage, they must ensure their husbands will not give them a reason to need legal protection. This very case, I feel, is what Helen is struggling with – she does not realize how defenseless her position becomes when attaching herself to a man like Huntington and why there is such an aversion to her feelings toward him from her aunt, who has learned the constraints of a woman’s power. Also, I might ask how this novel paints a “man of good feeling” that differs from those who would put women in a negative place within the law.