Marriage Quote by Angela Carter
““She was a Victorian girl; a girl of the days when men were hard and top-hatted and masculine and ruthless and girls were gentle and meek and did a great deal of sewing and looked after the poor and laid their tender napes beneath a husband’s booted foot, and even if he brought home cabfuls of half-naked chorus girls and had them dance on the rich round mahogany dining-table (rosily reflecting great pearly hams and bums in its polished depths). Or, drunk to a frenzy, raped the kitchen-maid before the morning assembly of servants and children and her black silk-dressed self (gathered for prayers). Or forced her to stitch, on shirts, her fingers to rags to pay his gambling debts. Husbands were a force of nature or an act of God; like an earthquake or the dreaded consumption, to be borne with, to be meekly acquiesced to, to be impregnated by as frequently as Nature would allow. It took the mindless persistence, the dogged imbecility of the grey tides, to love a husband.””
About This Quote
Source Novel: The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, 1979
The passage sat the oppressive, violent, and misogynistic expectations placed on Victorian women, depicting marriage as a brutal institution that demands submission and endurance.
In simple terms: Victorian women faced harsh, abusive marital expectations.
Recognize and challenge systemic gender oppression.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- historical analysis
- feminist critique
- literary study
- social justice advocacy
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- How do modern narratives reinterpret Victorian gender norms?
- What forms of resistance can arise under oppressive systems?
The depiction may overlook women's agency and resistance within such constraints.