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Marriage and immorality

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Often appears with: the passions and the emotions · social morality · romance vs reality · pleasure, pain, and the good life · marriage and betrothal · happiness and imagination

Usually: reflection (1) · ambition and its cost (1) · the test or trial (1) · detachment (1) · wonder (1)

Maria; Or, The Wrongs of Woman secondary

Mary Wollstonecraft · 1798-01-01
CHAPTER 1 > CHAPTER 16 (3/3)

Maria and Darnford experience love mixed with instability, and the narration contrasts romantic dreams with real social and emotional happiness, culminating in her view that marriage as constituted leads to immorality yet may be needed for social recognition.

[13] The name in the manuscript is by mistake written Caesar. EDITOR. [Godwin’s note] With Darnford she did not taste uninterrupted felicity; there was a volatility in his manner which often distressed her; but love gladdened the scene; besides, he was the most tender, sympathizing creature in the world. A fondness for the sex often gives an appearance of humanity to the behaviour of men, who have small pretensions …