Also, romantic love is a new exciting thing to write about and I think people are entertained by it. I think the emergence of romantic love helps to appeal to the emotions of people reading the texts. They are more relatable and make you feel bad for the victims. The texts focus more on appealing to people's emotions and touching their hearts.
I think a dependence on romantic love could definitely be seen as a rejection of the patriarchal structure. For example, in a patriarchal society the man is the leader of the house and in control. If marriage was based on love, then the sons and daughters would have control over their parents and that could be seen as dangerous to the patriarchal society. Parents don't want their kids to be able to decide who they want to marry, they would rather have control and decide for them.
I don't think arranged marriages is the answer because the male seducers could just put on an act and seem innocent for the parents, but after marriage could turn or after seducing the woman could still leave. These men were so good at "putting on a show" that the women believed them and fell for their tricks. I think the parents are capable of doing the same thing. Therefore, arranged marriages would be just as bad.
4 comments:
I like what you said about romance being an exciting thing to write about-- I hadn't considered that before. I don't think this was the only motive for including love in the narratives, (I know you don't argue that in your blog post), but it certainly could be a reason why. Good posting.
I agree with your comment that arranged marriages were susceptible to the same folly as the women in distress that fill the texts for class this week. Obviously, the rake had perfected his artful ways and was very gifted in the employment of chicanery and duplicity!
The goal for the arranged marriage was to meet some other goal than marital bliss. Marital bliss was a side benefit. Ughhhh.
I like how you said that a "dependence on romantic love could definitely be seen as a rejection of the patriarchal structure." I agree with that. That was a way of kind of branching out and making a statement that the women actually had feelings and opinions on who they would want to marry.
Good points! I didn't even think about the parents' role in all this.. it's interesting and kinda messed up to consider that the parents would mean to trick the daughters into a marriage so that they could gain something financially or socially maybe from the benefits of an arranged marriage to a man from a prestigious family. During this time I'm sure it's of no importance whether the man was even respectful or loving towards their daughter, it's kinda sad actually.
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