Miss Havisham disillusion comes from her abandonment by her fiancé. This brings into discussion the idea of marriage and its importance for the women of the Victorian age. As previously stated at that time, marriage was one of the most important things in a woman’s life. This was a necessity for all women who wanted to survive and gain a certain status in the normality imposed by society. At the moment, the notion of independence was not allowed to women because this would imply them entering the working sphere, a sphere that was completely dedicated to men. Thus, they were dependent on men’s income for survival whether they wanted it or not.
But one must not forget that not all women were considered worthy of marriage. In order to be seen as a potential wife, women had to be chaste and to preserve a sense of innocence even after they have been proposed to, remaining “free from any thought of love or sexuality.” (Kane, 97). As expected, this requirement was not applicable to men who were free to engage in both premarital and extramarital relationships without any sort of problem.
After getting married, the rights and wealth of women would cease to exist. The law claimed that through marriage, the wife and husband become one and what is hers is his. This meant
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His portrayal of women in Great Expectations is complex and mischievous. The female characters are constructed in a sort of fix pattern of moral transformation and end up being better versions of themselves at the end of the novel (Biddy is an exception from the rule because she is seen from the beginning as a nice person). This seems to prove Dickens’ intentions of creating female protagonists whose role is to inflict torture and pain over men. Mrs. Joe Gargery believes that by taking Pip in she has absolute rights over him and sends him to Miss Havisham without worrying about his