Matthew Chambers

Final Research Paper

“Lovë, According to the Brontë Sisters”

1,997 Words

One of the most challenging systems faced by women in the nineteenth century British

system was the institution of marriage. The decision of whom one married was oftentimes

determined by a combination of class status and how one can keep this status with their new

spouse. Not everyone agreed with this approach to marriage, including the authors and sisters

Charlotte and Emily Brontë. Their books showed how marriage can have disastrous

consequences for both the couple and their families and posed arguments against this legal-,

class-, and property-centric focus in marriage. The Brontë sisters both challenged the Victorian

perception of marriage through their novels, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. While they

attack these conventions from different angles – one from the angle of class and the other from

the angle of revenge – they both come to the conclusion that the idea of women being treated as

property in marriage detracts from the inherent beauty of marriage and moves the focus away

from love and towards improving one’s societal standing and perception.

In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, the issue of marriage is a key aspect of Jane’s adult,

working life. Focusing on the class aspect of marriage, Charlotte challenges Jane as a character

with the societal expectations of marriage when she is faced with the decision to accept or

decline the marriage proposal of her Christian missionary friend, St. John. Deep down, Jane

knew that “[her] heart is mute” with St. John and belongs to someone else: “Nothing speaks or

stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling […] no voice counselling or

cheering” (C. Brontë 501-502). However, due to societal limitations with regards to class, Jane
still feels compelled to stay with St. John. This is a decision not lightly made, according to Joan

Perkin in her book Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England: “[marriage] was the

legal instrument by which the fate of family for generations was decided,” with “fortunes and

titles” being factors into marriage as a way of keeping the class status of the family throughout

generations to come (Perkin 64). Breaking this tradition would result in a diminished social

perception and run the risk of losing the class status that the family sought to keep through

marriage. Jane knew that this is how marriage worked legally, and although she wanted to marry

Rochester, because of his upper-class status she could not consider this idea. This event gives

Jane two decisions: accept the proposal from St. John and live a miserable life while conforming

to the societal standards of marriage or decline the proposal and attempt to marry Rochester to

defy expectations and live a life of love. This emphasizes Charlotte’s view on marriage, showing

the readers that Jane can live a better life than the one she would choose to live with St. John if

she chooses to follow her heart instead of class.

Just like in Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights establishes the idea of going

against the societal expectations of marriage through the proposal of a man to a woman that is

not in love with him, this time from the angle of property in marriage. This is accomplished in

Wuthering Heights through the proposal given by Edgar Linton to Catherine Earnshaw. While

Catherine accepts the offer immediately, she is still hesitant if it is the right decision; when asked

if she loves him, the only reasons she does is because “he is handsome, pleasant to be with, […]

young and cheerful, […] and will be rich” (E. Brontë 99-100). This last note in the list comes

from her understanding of property laws in marriage, as explained by John Stuart Mill in “The

Subjection of Women.” Catherine knows that she can “acquire no property but for him; […] all

rights, all property, […] whatever is hers is his” and the “parallel inference is never drawn” (Mill
387-388). With this knowledge and because she is keen on living a wealthy lifestyle with Edgar,

she is willing to give up this property to gain more as a union in return. Brontë scoffs at this

notion of marriage, emphasizing the broader point that marriage through this lens that Catherine

is viewing marriage through does not bode well for the long run, foreshadowed by the doubt that

she is confiding in her friend.

As a novel, Jane Eyre has a heavy emphasis on class and how it shapes the relationships

between two individuals from different spheres. This shifts the dynamic of the relationship

between Jane and Rochester from the get-go and gives Brontë the ability to emphasize her

argument against current standards of marriage to class throughout the novel. The novel

constantly reminding the reader of Jane’s lesser status as a middle-class working woman serving

the upper class through her role as a governess, particularly when Jane goes to extremes in order

to try and quell the love she has for Rochester. During her role as governess, Jane tries to

convince herself that Rochester is in love with a woman of equal class as him with physical

representations of their inequality, having Jane’s portrait show “no harsh line [omitted], no

displeasing irregularity [smoothed away]” while having the portrait of the higher-class woman

show “[the] softest shades and sweetest hues” (C. Brontë 237). Jane is doing what is oftentimes

instructed of women to do in advice manuals, such as Sarah Stickney Ellis’ The Daughters of

England: assert their position in society and always be mindful of it. Jane is asserting “whether

[she] is rich, or poor, an orphan, or the child of watchful parents […] [to] properly understand the

kind of duty required for [her]” through these paintings, asserting that her position in society is

inferior to that of the higher-class woman with these physical reminders (Ellis 600-601).

Charlotte uses this event to show Jane’s awareness of the societal expectations of marriage and

uses it as a platform for the argument against this standard in marriage.

can become a tool of destruction for marriages. Heathcliff knows that Catherine is still in love

with him and is angry at the Earnshaw family for convincing her to marry Edgar in order to keep

the Wuthering Heights property away from his grasp. In order to extract his revenge on them,

then, he marries Isabella Linton and legally sets himself up to be “[the] prospective owner of [the

Earnshaw’s] place” through his son, stating that he “[wishes] him [not] to die till [he] was certain

of being [the] successor” (E. Brontë 208). Heathcliff knew how property laws worked in

nineteenth-century Britain just as well as the Linton family, which are explained in Mary Lyndon

Shanley’s Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian Britain. While the marriage of a couple

made the law “[treat] married persons as ‘one’ when the lived ‘under a common roof,’” there

was a double standard when it came to “married women’s right to control their own property” as

the law had a sex-based bias against women’s right to property (Shanley 26-27). Heathcliff

decided to abuse this aspect of the law in order to extract his revenge, with his marriage legally

giving him ownership over the Linton property of Thrushcross Grange. Emily again emphasizes

her point that marriage should not be about the property one retains or gains through the legal

union, as in many cases it results in the destruction of relationships between family and friends,

exemplified through the relationships between the Earnshaws and the Lintons.

At the end of Charlotte’s novel, the reader is encountered with a direct address from Jane

herself: “reader, I married him” (C. Brontë 552). Defying the societal limitations imposed on

both herself and Rochester, Jane marries outside of her class and enters into a marriage centered

around the ideals of mutual love, understanding, and need of one another. Their marriage serves

as a completion of one another where “[they] know what it is to live entirely for and with what

[they] love best on earth” (C. Brontë 554). While their marriage goes against the standards of
class and status in marriage, which are pointed out in the article “Patriarchy Stabilized” by Wally

Seccombe, it also completes them in its own fashion. Seccombe discusses how marriage stays

within class because men are often the breadwinners of the household, stating that “the proper

role for women was to stay at home […] and concentrate their energies on being good

homemakers,” which helps perpetuate the class system reinforced through the sexist legal system

of marriage (Seccombe 68). Because of this system, marriages are oftentimes strained and

loveless. Jane does complete this role of the homemaker, as she became Rochester’s caretaker

for the first two years of their marriage as “his vision […] [who] saw through me” and “never did

[she] weary of gazing for his behalf” (C. Brontë 554); the two became closer than ever, however,

with Jane stating that “no woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am” (C. Brontë 554). It is

not because of class or the fulfillment of the expected roles of marriage but rather their love and

endearment for each other that makes their marriage successful. This convention about class that

are present in marriage, as Charlotte sees it, is one of the main reasons why the beauty of this

union is being misinterpreted and altogether missed by those in the nineteenth century. The

marriage of Jane and Rochester serves as an example of what marriage can be without these

conventions.

While Emily focused on the property aspect of marriage in Wuthering Heights, her

critique landed in the same place as her sisters at the end of her novel. After Heathcliff had died,

his family decides to defy the expectations of post-death marriage and move his grave next to the

grave of Catherine. It was “to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood,” but the result of this

burial led to physical manifestations of the two together: “the country folks […] would swear on

the Bible that he walks” with Catherine, finally living the life they dreamed together when they

were young (E. Brontë 311). This final act of love between Heathcliff and Catherine acts as a
direct statement on the legal emphasis of property in marriage: by moving the grave of

Heathcliff, or the property of the dead, next to the grave of Catherine, the two lovers are going

against the reasons they did not marry in the first place and bringing their property together. By

ending the novel so, Emily emphasizes her point that marriage should be done without regards to

the property that will be gained or lost. This destruction of property at the end shows that a true

marriage should not be focused around material, worldly possessions; only a marriage done

through love will last forever, and the ghosts of Catherine and Heathcliff prove her point.

With these storylines told in the Brontë sisters’ novels, their critique becomes clear: love

is what makes a good marriage, not how much the marriage benefits the couple – more

specifically the man. This benefit can come from many different aspects of life – from class

standings or from property owned – yet should be the last thing on a couple’s minds if they are

choosing to live their life together. In Jane Eyre, Jane and Rochester live a happy life filled with

love, even though they are from different class backgrounds and social spheres. In Wuthering

Heights, although they do not fulfill their love in their lifetimes, Catherine and Heathcliff

become lovers in the afterlife by going against the legal expectations of property by putting their

graves next to each other, achieving the love they could not while alive. Both of these storylines,

while attacking the expectation of marriage at different angles, emphasize that love should be

made the paramount factor in marriage and that by doing so it will lead to a happier, more

beautiful life together.

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Edited by Richard Nemesvari, Broadview Editions, 1999.

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Edited by Beth Newman, Broadview Editions, 2007.

Ellis, Sarah Stickney. “The Daughters of England: Their Position in Society, Character and

Responsibilities.” Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Broadview Editions, 1999, pp. 600-

606.

Mill, John Stuart. “The Subjection of Women.” Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë, Broadview

Editions, 2007, pp. 387-388.

Perkin, Joan. “One Law for the Rich.” Women and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century England, by

Joan Perkin, Routledge, 2016, pp. 50-75.

Seccombe, Wally. “Patriarchy Stabilized: The Construction of the Male Breadwinner Wage

Norm in Nineteenth-Century Britain.” Social History, vol. 11, no. 1, 1986, pp. 53–76.

JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4285488.

Shanley, Mary Lyndon. “What Kind of a Contract is Marriage?” Feminism, Marriage, and the

Law in Victorian England, by Mary Lyndon Shanley, Princeton University Press, 1993,

pp. 22-46.