Question

How does marriage as an institution and as an economic transaction affect the lives of Jane Eyre, Edward Rochester and St. John Rivers. Give reasoned answer with critical comments from theorists and examples from the text. Write in 600 words
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Answer 1

Answer:

Jane Eyre contends that marriage is irreducible to a contract; it must be sustained by the conversation of equals. Yet the marriage of equals that the novel’s conclusion describes between Jane and Rochester cannot be confused with the legal entrenchment of sexual inequality in early nineteenth-century marriage laws. A political message is inscribed in the ending. Equality cannot survive without legal recognition and, in early nineteenth-century Britain, this means legal reform: Jane cannot be Rochester’s equal if she is simply his mistress and she also cannot be his equal if the laws concerning marriage are not reformed. Jane and Rochester come together in conversation, inventing each other for themselves, and reinventing marriage as the social form of such freedom.