Marriage and Courtship in Anthony Trollope's Novels

Abstract

Anthony Trollopeb s novels explore a variety of scenarios involving marriage and courtship in Victorian society. In this thesis, I examine how Trollope addresses three tenets of Victorian ideology: first, that marrying without love is immoral; second, that wives should submit to their husbands; third, that a successful marriage hinges on complete adherence to the ideologies of love and separate spheres. Unlike Robert Polhemus who argues that Trollope tries to affirm the values of his society (Changing World 91), I contend that Trollope challenges the ideologies of love and separate spheres by revealing their inherent inconsistencies and the tensions between reality and ideology. Rather than offering any easy solutions to marital problems, Trollope appears to suggest that marriage is a essentially a private relationship which must be worked out by the individuals involved, instead of relying on an arbitrary set of rules imposed by society.