English Language and Literature Commons^™

Formulating Fantasies: Marriage In Victorian England And George Eliot's Middlemarch, Liza Welch Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

One of the oldest states of existence known to humanity, marriage is a traditional state of being, uniting one man and one woman to love, honor, cherish, and protect each other for the rest of their lives. In Victorian England, however, many men and women questioned traditional expectations concerning marriage. Society's norms in Britain dictated that marriage was the ultimate goal in the nineteenth century, and, according to Barbara Weiss, "there has perhaps never been an age (or a literature) as relentlessly pro marriage as the Victorian period" (67). However, many issues concerning marriage disturbed some freer-thinking Victorians, including novelist …