Makin' Waves

I made a few waves today with the feminists in my Lit class as we were discussing a character in a short story.  In a nutshell the lady finds out her husband has died in an accident, grieves for about 2 minutes then she's elated as she realizes she's "free, free, free." To her dismay hubby walks in the door, clearly alive and well, and she falls down dead from the shock. The story is set in the year 1894.

We were discussing possibles for the story such as did she ever try to be happy in her relationship? Clearly since she couldn't be the CEO of a multi-national corporation back then so there was no possibility of happiness for her. Unless her hubby died. A girl in our class said she understands the woman's grief and sense of relief because you know back then she couldn't have even talked to her husband. Men didn't care one bit about women on any level, and never wanted to hear anything they had to say or what they wanted, etc. And on she went. 

I finally raised my hand and said I had to disagree. (I'm so, so tired of hearing how poor women have been miserable for their entire existence until about the 1960s!)  I said that "too often when people look back at history they assume that no one was happy until modern times, that no one had anything good in their lives and that's just wrong. It's just not true." Then I read the part of the story that says her husband's "face never looked upon her save with love," which seems to indicate that he loved her. Or am I misreading? Certainly a possibility.

I refuse to believe that all women in history have been miserable. That's just ridiculous. This story seemed to indicate that this marriage may have been arranged - we get to choose our marriage partners these days and that doesn't guarantee happiness any more than an arranged married guaranteed misery. I think that people have been and will always be able, in most cases, to find some level of happiness and contentment within their sphere if they try. If we don't put any effort into it then that's to our own detriment and the same was true for women of the past and will be for women of the future.  I didn't give this whole spiel (and believe me, I could go on but I'll spare you...) but I think even my short comment annoyed the girl in the back who prefers to think only modern women can possibly be happy. I wonder how much she limits her own happiness, even today, by dwelling on what she still thinks she can't do?