"How the dignity and delicacy of such a person could have been affected, if the preliminary negotiation with her hobbling Strephon had been conducted through the instrumentality of honest Christie's hammer, I cannot possibly imagine."
This is evidently not to be construed into a satire against
women, for Peacock follows the lead of Defoe in the
chivalrous justice which, so far from ridiculing women,
pointed out on the contrary the absurdity of the conditions
that had made them seem absurd. In the same story
he describes Sir Henry as—[1]
"* * * one of those who maintained the heretical notion
that women are, or at least may be, rational beings; though,
from the great pains usually taken in what is called education
to make them otherwise, there are unfortunately very few
examples to warrant the truth of the theory."
In another connection he observes that the repression
of feminine activity shows—[2]
"* * * the usual logic of tyranny, which first places its
extinguisher on the flame, and then argues that it cannot burn."
As to the mercenary marriage, further satire is contributed
by Thackeray, whose plaints over the matches made
every day in Vanity Fair are well known; by Dickens and
Brontë in short, glancing shafts; and by Trollope, who
makes it the main or secondary theme of half a dozen novels.
On the more intricate subject of the Eternal Feminine,
the contributions come from Lytton, Brontë, (not, however,
from Mrs. Gaskell or George Eliot), Trollope, and
Meredith. The first three agree on the bane of enforced
idleness, which breeds frivolity and inane restlessness.
