Have just finished reading a really nice novel (The Peacock Emporium by Jojo Moyes) and I find myself thinking:
When did this happen?
At what point in the history of modern fiction did leaving your husband for someone else become a nice happy ending for a novel?
I feel like going in search of the main character, Suzannah, and saying: Excuse me, but what exactly did you think when you said all that stuff about "till death do us part"? Did you have your fingers crossed behind your back as you stood there in your beautiful wedding dress, thinking, "Yes well... of course what I really mean is until I have some sort of midlife identity crisis and ditch you for someone with more fire in his blood"?
How annoying that not one of the characters voices the view - is it really considered so outdated?! - that following your emotions is not necessarily the best course of action, that marriage is something to work at! Sorry, no, I now realise that there was one person who voiced that opinion - her poor husband when she told him she was leaving him. I wouldn't be so annoyed if he had been an awful husband, but his only fault seems to be his ability to remain content in the face of all the turbulence that life and his wife were dishing out to him. So he puts up with his wife binge-shopping them into debt, he puts up with his wife being moody and impossible when she's setting up in business, he puts up with her changing her mind about having children with him, he puts up with her general spoilt brat mentality throughout, all because presumably he actually took seriously those vows they made when they got married, but then his wife just suddenly says she's leaving, and that's that. End of marriage.
Okay, I've got that off my chest now.
When did this happen?
At what point in the history of modern fiction did leaving your husband for someone else become a nice happy ending for a novel?
I feel like going in search of the main character, Suzannah, and saying: Excuse me, but what exactly did you think when you said all that stuff about "till death do us part"? Did you have your fingers crossed behind your back as you stood there in your beautiful wedding dress, thinking, "Yes well... of course what I really mean is until I have some sort of midlife identity crisis and ditch you for someone with more fire in his blood"?
How annoying that not one of the characters voices the view - is it really considered so outdated?! - that following your emotions is not necessarily the best course of action, that marriage is something to work at! Sorry, no, I now realise that there was one person who voiced that opinion - her poor husband when she told him she was leaving him. I wouldn't be so annoyed if he had been an awful husband, but his only fault seems to be his ability to remain content in the face of all the turbulence that life and his wife were dishing out to him. So he puts up with his wife binge-shopping them into debt, he puts up with his wife being moody and impossible when she's setting up in business, he puts up with her changing her mind about having children with him, he puts up with her general spoilt brat mentality throughout, all because presumably he actually took seriously those vows they made when they got married, but then his wife just suddenly says she's leaving, and that's that. End of marriage.
Okay, I've got that off my chest now.
