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Yeah, I know I should be posting about New Year's ...and Happy New Year's in case you missed last post.
But was rather surprised by this passage in the middle of a romance novel by Loretta Chase. It's a historical and takes place in the 1800s - 1828 or thereabouts. The heroine is a magazine and adventure writer. The hero - a reluctant Duke and a bit of a rake. He asks her to marry him.
"In any event, regardless what he meant by asking, she knew that marriage meant male dominance - with the unquestioning support of all forms of societal authority: the law, the church, the Crown. By everyone, in short, but the dominated gender, the women, whose enthusiasm for this state of affairs ran from strong (among the misguided few) to nonexistent (among the enlightened). Lydia had in her late teens taken her place among the latter and had not budged from that position since.
"Thank you," she said in her coolest, most resolute tones,"but marriage is not for me."
He came away from the door to take up a position across the desk from her. "Don't tell me," he said. "You've some high-flown principle against it."
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"You don't see, I suppose, why a woman has to behave differently than a man does. You don't see why you can't simply bed me and leave me. After all, this what men do, so why can't you?"
"Women do it, too," she said.
"Whores." He perched on the edge of her desk, his back half turned to her. "Now you're going to tell me that calling them whores is unjust. Why should women be vilified for doing what men do with impunity?"
This, in fact was what she had been thinking and what she was about to say...[...]
"I should like to know why I am the only woman who has to marry you," she said, "merely to get what you pay to give other women. Thousands of other women."
"Leave it to you," he said, "to make it sound as though you've been singled out for punishment- cruel and inhuman, no doubt. You think I'm a bad bargain. Or, more likely, it's worse than that: it isn't me specifically, but all men. You're so blinded by contempt for men in general that you can't see any of the advantages of marrying me in particular."
As though she hadn't spent most of her life seeing for herself wedlock's so-called advantages, Lydia thought. As though she didn't see, almost daily, women wedlocked in heartbreak, helplessness, instability, and too often, appallingly, in violence.
"What particular advantages do you have in mind?" she asked. "Your wealth, do you mean? I have all the money I require and enough left over to save for a rainy day. Or is it the privileges of rank you refer to? Such as shopping for the latest fashions to wear to grand social affairs where the main entertainment is Slander My Neighbor? Or do you mean admittance to court,so that I may bow and scrape to the king?" [......]
"Or perhaps you call it a privelege," she continued, "to be obliged to live within an exceedingly narrow set of rules dictating what I may or may not say, or think?"
[He proceeds to tell her the power she can wield as Duchess, the reforms she can push forward, the influence she would have as his wife.]
It's about power. Romance novels like all novels depict a battle of wills, power plays, between people. In various ways.
But was rather surprised by this passage in the middle of a romance novel by Loretta Chase. It's a historical and takes place in the 1800s - 1828 or thereabouts. The heroine is a magazine and adventure writer. The hero - a reluctant Duke and a bit of a rake. He asks her to marry him.
"In any event, regardless what he meant by asking, she knew that marriage meant male dominance - with the unquestioning support of all forms of societal authority: the law, the church, the Crown. By everyone, in short, but the dominated gender, the women, whose enthusiasm for this state of affairs ran from strong (among the misguided few) to nonexistent (among the enlightened). Lydia had in her late teens taken her place among the latter and had not budged from that position since.
"Thank you," she said in her coolest, most resolute tones,"but marriage is not for me."
He came away from the door to take up a position across the desk from her. "Don't tell me," he said. "You've some high-flown principle against it."
"As a matter of fact, I do."
"You don't see, I suppose, why a woman has to behave differently than a man does. You don't see why you can't simply bed me and leave me. After all, this what men do, so why can't you?"
"Women do it, too," she said.
"Whores." He perched on the edge of her desk, his back half turned to her. "Now you're going to tell me that calling them whores is unjust. Why should women be vilified for doing what men do with impunity?"
This, in fact was what she had been thinking and what she was about to say...[...]
"I should like to know why I am the only woman who has to marry you," she said, "merely to get what you pay to give other women. Thousands of other women."
"Leave it to you," he said, "to make it sound as though you've been singled out for punishment- cruel and inhuman, no doubt. You think I'm a bad bargain. Or, more likely, it's worse than that: it isn't me specifically, but all men. You're so blinded by contempt for men in general that you can't see any of the advantages of marrying me in particular."
As though she hadn't spent most of her life seeing for herself wedlock's so-called advantages, Lydia thought. As though she didn't see, almost daily, women wedlocked in heartbreak, helplessness, instability, and too often, appallingly, in violence.
"What particular advantages do you have in mind?" she asked. "Your wealth, do you mean? I have all the money I require and enough left over to save for a rainy day. Or is it the privileges of rank you refer to? Such as shopping for the latest fashions to wear to grand social affairs where the main entertainment is Slander My Neighbor? Or do you mean admittance to court,so that I may bow and scrape to the king?" [......]
"Or perhaps you call it a privelege," she continued, "to be obliged to live within an exceedingly narrow set of rules dictating what I may or may not say, or think?"
[He proceeds to tell her the power she can wield as Duchess, the reforms she can push forward, the influence she would have as his wife.]
It's about power. Romance novels like all novels depict a battle of wills, power plays, between people. In various ways.