liyahreadit’s Reviews > Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages > Status Update

Harriet Taylor and John Mill, you have destroyed me. Rose putting this beautiful union before the Dickens marriage is actually demonic.

“The man who had been trained to think for himself from the age of five informed Mrs Taylor that he would change any opinion if she asked him to,” and they weren’t even married here??

In the age of heterofatalism (or the age where stuff like this are given names), reading about the past really puts into perspective how far women have come, but at the same time, it makes you wonder what future women will find shocking about heterosexual relations today, in ~200 years.

The marriage of Effie Gray & John Ruskin… I don’t even know what to say. From him realizing he’s disgusted by the female anatomy on their wedding night to their annulment due to lack of consummation after 6 years. And apparently the worst is yet to come…

Rose on the politics of Mr Ruskin:
“A woman’s desire for independence and autonomy – like that of a colonial state – is childish, petty, petulantly rebellious.”

Thomas going from telling Jane marriage is so beneath her because he didn’t think she would marry HIM just to tell her how important being HIS housewife will be when she finally comes around. That ending had me in a whirlwind I’m not gonna lie.

favorite quote from chapter 1:
“Too much reading, too much research, too much intaking with no creative reconstruction was, he told her wisely, not a good thing.”