{"id":42,"date":"2015-09-28T10:09:09","date_gmt":"2015-09-28T15:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/?p=42"},"modified":"2015-09-28T10:09:09","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T15:09:09","slug":"hard-times-to-get-a-divorce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/2015\/09\/hard-times-to-get-a-divorce\/","title":{"rendered":"Hard Times to Get a Divorce"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hard Times<\/em> deals with divorce in an interesting way in relation to its time period. Victorian marriage laws made divorce next to impossible, as it required an act of Parliament, something extraordinarily expensive to achieve. In 1854, Caroline Norton wrote extensively on the unfair nature of Victorian marriage law in The Making of Modern Law<\/em>. \u00a0Norton describes how divorce was a \u201cluxury fairly belonging\u2026to the superior and wealthy classes\u201d (19). She argues that in stating various cases of difficult marriages and needed divorce, she does not \u201cpetition for sympathy\u201d but \u201cclaim[s] justice\u201d, and that one should \u201cblame the law\u201d for the terrible cases she describes. Dickens, on the contrary, does invoke sympathy for those stuck in unfair marriages in Hard Times<\/em>. For a poor working man like Stephen Blackpool, divorce was an actual impossibility. He could not escape the immoral, alcoholic wife he so hated. Although Dickens sets up Stephen and Rachael in a beautiful, loving and trusting relationship with each other, prompting hopes for the reader that the two may find a way to be happy at last, he knows that their union is impossible. Either Stephen or his wife would have to die in order for their marriage to be dissolved. Interestingly enough, Dickens does not kill off Blackpool\u2019s wife as would be expected for good feelings all around, but rather Stephen Blackpool himself. Dickens thus creates a pathos for Stephen that urges the reader to pity a man unfortunate enough to end up in such a bad marriage. He does not give the desired happy ending, going so far as to let Rachael live out the rest of her days caring for Stephen\u2019s terrible widow.<\/p>\n

In contrast, Mr. Bounderby and Louisa\u2019s separation leaves divorce unclear. He simply sends her packing and resumes his bachelor life. Bounderby dies a few years later, and Louisa grows up to never have children, which leads the reader to believe she was unable to marry again. If Bounderby dies, however, shouldn\u2019t Louisa be able to get remarried? Dickens leaves this matter unclear, though it could be assumed that Bounderby has enough money to pay for a divorce. The harsh treatment of Stephen by Bounderby when he explains his awful marriage predicament comes back to haunt him when he finds Louisa never loved him and has abandoned their marriage. Dickens thus outlines two scenarios in which a husband and wife may be incompatible and could benefit greatly from fair marriage legislation. The unhappy endings for Stephen Blackpool in death, Rachael in husbandless care of her desired lover\u2019s widow, Louisa in never marrying again or having children, and Bounderby in premature death imply that there is no escaping the mark of a bad marriage under such cruel, unmovable laws.<\/p>\n

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Norton, Caroline Sheridan.\u00a0English laws for women in the nineteenth century.<\/em> London, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01854.\u00a0The <\/em>Making of Modern Law<\/em>. Gale. 2015. Gale, Cengage Learning. 28 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0September 2015<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard Times deals with divorce in an interesting way in relation to its time period. Victorian marriage laws made divorce next to impossible, as it required an act of Parliament, something extraordinarily expensive to achieve. In 1854, Caroline Norton wrote … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/43"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/f2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}