Double Standards

Since "the predominant power of truth and reason... can neither be altered nor concealed," (Preface) self-evident truths don't need rebuttal. It reminds me of a line from Orson Scott Card's Speaker for the Dead: "We question all our beliefs, except the ones that we really believe in, and those we never think to question." We spoke in class about finding times when Charlotte Smith's views come across in her characters' letters, and one way to pinpoint these occurrences was when the opinion is not contradicted.

I see Geraldine - unhappy, trapped - as an opportunity for Smith to express herself. It's interesting that there's never a reply to Geraldine's Vol. 3 Letter X evaluation of the "marriage market." She remembers how Mrs. Waverly threw her in front of any rich or noble man, no matter how horrid. The disappointing bit from a modern standpoint is that Geraldine's indictment of her mother's attitude is watered down since she doesn't blame her mother for wanting her to be happy (social butterfly, fashionable hostess, and worldly wise) - apparently, she wouldn't have wanted that anyways. Come on, Geraldine/Smith. Why pull the punch?

However, it doesn't particularly bother me that Smith doesn't have her really struggle against her circumstances in a way that would let her escape. Divorce before the 1857 reforms was extremely rare - some bureaucratic nonsense about petitioning Parliament and then it was beastly expensive apparently. Since the husband would get custody of any children, it wouldn't even be an option since Geraldine is so attached to hers. Geraldine's situation is one that cannot really be solved without a drastic plot event, which is why Mr. Verney had to die to ensure her happy ending.

What is annoying, and which Smith brings to the fore, is the double standard by which men and women's sexual behavior is judged. Desmond's liaison with Josephine de Boisville seems so out of character after spending the entire novel mooning over Geraldine, but it nevertheless positions his actions in direct contrast to innocent Geraldine who (if she can be believed) "never... even in thought" (Vol. 3 Let. 23) behaved indecently. The plot rewards both of them with a promising future together, but as to the general political context in which Smith placed the book, it deserves scrutiny. It's an unbalanced outcome that surely must rank amongst the evils of Smith's time and she wants her British readers to remember that they too live in a glass house when they think themselves so superior to the silly French.