That's how it ends! Atherton just can't decide how to answer Ben's letter, CURTAIN FALLS.
I've noticed in a lot of nineteenth century novels that the authors just don't believe in divorce, and by this I mean not that they necessarily think it's morally wrong (Howells does let Marcia and Bartley get divorced in the end), but that they seem to think it's not actually possible. Like, legally it's possible and maybe even desirable in cases of total incompatibility, but morally marriages fuses husband and wife into one flesh just like it says in the Bible and mere human law can't sunder them - they can separate but not remarry. It's so different from how most people (even conservative people) view marriage today that it took me a long time to wrap my head around it.
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Date: 2020-01-27 01:58 am (UTC)I've noticed in a lot of nineteenth century novels that the authors just don't believe in divorce, and by this I mean not that they necessarily think it's morally wrong (Howells does let Marcia and Bartley get divorced in the end), but that they seem to think it's not actually possible. Like, legally it's possible and maybe even desirable in cases of total incompatibility, but morally marriages fuses husband and wife into one flesh just like it says in the Bible and mere human law can't sunder them - they can separate but not remarry. It's so different from how most people (even conservative people) view marriage today that it took me a long time to wrap my head around it.