- "Myself and what is mine, to you and yours
- Is now converted. But now I was the lord
- Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
- Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now,
- This house, these servants, and this same myself
- Are yours, my lord!"
This passage to me was so astonishing. This passage seems more like a contract of a servant than it does the uniting of two people. I find especially interesting that she must vow to give her actual self. This seems as if by saying these words she becomes a possession. Is she actually giving up her ability to be human? She has also vowed to give everything to him and his. Are his possessions actually becoming more valuable than the woman? I guess it is hard for me to believe that two people can unite in a bond that is supposed to be based on love in such an unloving way. I really like how the author used this quote to show exactly how things were at this time. Rather than just describing how things were laid out, Cobbe actually gives examples to pull the reader into the story.
1 comment:
I agree that the passage acts like a contractual agreement. But I think that's what marriage is, it's not really based on love. It's based on commodity, I don't think it has ever really been about love. It is difficult to quantify a chemical reaction in the brain, that people mistake for love, so what better way than to make up for it in 'stuff,' especially when societal norms were far more defined by men at the time. The author did do well to show the reader the accounts to allow a more subjective view on the matter. But one point I find complicated is when you ask, "is she actually giving up her ability to be human?" I don't really think humanity is something to be lost, it's just the context of societal factions that imprison people's ideas. She is just imprisoned by those societal binds that she ultimately places on herself because she had been taught that to marry and give her self up for some type of happiness. Obviously, the restrictions then were far more confining and the societal grasp on the individual was for more suffocating.
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