Classics Without All the Class discussion

(A few more chapters added into this discussion)
Discuss 19-28

How are they even able to say that all of this is legal? A girl is forced to marry someone because she is being kidnapped, underage, and the law is basically like "Oh, well, it's done now." Is that really how it worked? Or was it just that Heathcliff had so arranged things financially that it would only hurt the rest of them to deny the marriage?