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| Fanny Gets a Shock http://www.mollands.net/etexts/images/mpillus/mpbrockwc24.jpg |
Event: JASNA CWNY
November Meeting
Title: The Exile of Maria Bertram Rushworth:
Adultery, Separation and Divorce in
Regency England by Lisa Brown
When: Saturday,
November 18 at 1 pm
Where: Pittsford
Barnes and Noble, Community Room
In the illustration above, Fanny learns about the liaison between Maria Bertram Rushworth and Henry Crawford. She reads:
"it was with infinite concern the
newspaper had to announce to the world a matrimonial fracas in
the family of Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R., whose name had
not long been enrolled in the lists of Hymen, and who had promised to become so
brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, having quitted her husband's roof
in company with the well-known and captivating Mr. C., the intimate friend and
associate of Mr. R., and it was not known even to the editor of the newspaper
whither they were gone." Mansfield Park chapter 46
Fanny is shocked to her core.
The horror of a mind like Fanny's, as
it received the conviction of such guilt, and began to take in some part of the
misery that must ensue, can hardly be described. At first, it was a sort of
stupefaction; but every moment was quickening her perception of the horrible
evil. Mansfield Park chapter 46
Mr. Price had his own view of what should befall Maria.
"But, by G--! if she belonged to me,
I'd give her the rope's end as long as I could stand over her. A little
flogging for man and woman too would be the best way of preventing such
things." Mansfield Park chapter 46
Jane Austen has a less physically abusive, but, perhaps, more emotionally difficult punishment for Maria.
It ended in Mrs. Norris's resolving to
quit Mansfield and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria, and in an
establishment being formed for them in another country, remote and private,
where, shut up together with little society, on one side no affection, on the
other no judgment, it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became
their mutual punishment. Mansfield Park chapter 48
Shocking as it was, these sorts of things did happen in Regency England. Marriages did not always succeed. What actually happened to women like Maria Rushworth? Did women, who had no legal existence, have any options? Come and hear Lisa Brown discuss all this in her talk "Adultery, Separation, and Divorce in Regency England."
