The portrayal of marriage and feminine sexuality in some women's writings

Abstract

Both in contemporary and historical times ‘marriage’ has been considered as one the most important social institutions. The benefits of marriage are undeniable, yet in most of the cases the restrictions and bindings imposed on married women are also inevitable. To feminists, marriage is a site for female subordination, which binds women to household labour, which is undermined by society. Women’s economic solvency is an important path for women to emerge from this reliance on marriage. However, it is only recently that women have been able to emerge out of this dependence. The emergence of the ‘new woman’ of the early twentieth century also helps us to shift the focus away from maternal aspects only, and has resulted in new ways of depicting women and looking at their lives. My thesis will look into five texts by women writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This thesis will try to explore the conditions and situation of women in society, specifically the position of women in marriage. Starting with the agendas of feminist movements, feminist criticisms and feminist interpretation of marriage, this thesis will analyze married life in the chosen texts. The ‘new woman’, madness, women’s individual happiness and autonomy will be traced by focusing on feminine sexuality. The purpose of the thesis is to find the position of women in marriage along with notions of marriage. This will be done by placing the texts in appropriate contexts and examining the position of the concerned authors