[hardy-l] RE: Hardy-l Digest, Vol 42, Issue 3

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Just a few thoughts --.

>"Sue is struggling suggests that life for  a New Woman was difficult indeed."

Some studies on emancipation have shown that for women struggling for 
liberation and independence, yet whose entire history had been one of 
dependence and reliance (upon the protection of father, then husband), a 
protection needed partly due to childbirth & the lack of effective 
contraception, there is a useful comparison to be made with emancipated 
slaves. In both cases, confusion, lack of self-esteem, intense anxiety, 
identity crises and many serious psychological handicaps afflicted both the 
emancipated post-bellum slave and the nineteenth- twentieth-century woman. 
Both were expected to hold their own in a world neither had ever 
experienced before. Most scarcely knew who they were or what they could 
expect of themselves.

I found these to be very useful sociological studies.


>"There is also the argument that to live a life as man and wife without 
>proper marriage would eventually destroy society "

Hardy was deeply concerned about Victorian institutionalised matrimony 
which denied women the right to own their body (let alone their own 
property) in a world clamouring for equal rights. Double standards existed 
in the divorce laws (Woodlanders), in property laws (FFMC) and in sexual 
mores (Tess) and so on. In this respect Hardy adhered closely to John 
Stuart Mill (worth reading- especially On Liberty)

>"...Father Time and what he represents.  For example, does he literally 
>represent time, or sign of the times, or even future time? ..."

If memory serves he was one of those children who had the appearance of a 
little old man. He  certainly had a very rough childhood: posted off by his 
mother from Australia with a sign round his neck to identify him, to a 
father he had never met,  and a stepmother who, herself, lacked a sense of 
her own identity (Little Jude asks Sue at one point if he should call her 
mother). Moreover his new parents were itinerant, without fixed abode, 
obviously struggling and Little Jude was ostracised by other children for 
these reasons.  Old before his time, I think, may be apt.

My dime's worth!
Cheers
Rosemarie.