Happy Ending
You can call me a hopeless romantic if you must but I was glad Miss Betsy Thoughtless had a happy ending. Maybe I was happy because Betsy found the strength and courage to leave that no good husband of hers. It was interesting to read a book depicting a heroine struggling with the consequences of marrying the wrong man as most of our readings up to this point end with a marriage and we didn't have the opportunity to see what the marriages were like.Betsy's marriage to the brutish Mr. Mundane was very unfortunate. She did not have a choice in this marriage as her guardians decided she was too flirtatious and wanted to marry her off before she ruined her reputation. This same flirtatiousness also scared off the man she whould have married, Mr. Trueworth. Once Betsy was married she was totally under the control of Mr. Mundane. Shea Stuart writes in her essay, "Subversive Didacticism in Eliza Haywood's Betsy Thoughtless," that "men govern women through a natural law of superiority." Stuart calls this control over women "divine-right patriary." Living in a marriage under this kind of rule would be a nightmare. I believe Haywood is arguing for a marriage contract that women and men enter into with mutual consent and free will. This is something we take for granted in our society but this was not the case in Haywood's time.
"Thus were the virtues of our heroine at length rewarded with a happiness, retarded only till she had render’d herself wholly worthy of receiving it"
posted by Lucy @ 8:29 AM
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