2007年4月11日星期三

Victorian Women
The degradation of the married woman in the Victorian era existed not only in that she was stripped of all her legal rights but also that no obligations were placed in her realm. Upon marriage, Victorian brides relinquished all rights to property and personal wealth to their husbands. The sexual conventions of the Victorian era left a legacy that haunts women to this day. While we have spousal rape laws in all states, obstacles remain for women who charge their husbands with forced sex. Some states place time constraints on the complainant. For example, in Illinois, "prosecution of a spouse . . . is barred unless the victim report[s] such offense . . . within 30 days.?Other states impose exceptions to their spousal rape provisions. In Tennessee rape or sexual battery of a spouse can be claimed only in cases where the offender is armed with a deadly weapon. In some states the prosecution of sexual acts, other than penetration, are precluded for spouses. For example, in Kansas, sexual battery is defined as "the intentional touching of the person of another . . . who is not the spouse of the offender?(National Center).The most common approach to implementing spousal rape laws was to simply eliminate the spousal exemption clause in states?existing rape laws. Legislators?greatest error was in failing to add language that would allow the prosecution of sexual battery in marriage.
Life's Remarks of the Orphanage
Remarks of the orphanage: a typhus epidemic sweeps through the school, worsened by the semi-starvation the pupils have been enduring. Many of the girls die, although Jane is unaffected. At the same time, Helen is dying of consumption, the fate that she accepts with an utterly calm and saintly attitude. After Helen's death and the Typhus epidemic, conditions at Lowood improve. This is due to an inquiry of why typhus fever struck Lowood that revealed Mr. Brocklehurst's uncaring ways. Jane slowly finds her place at the institution, eventually becoming a teacher, but when her mentor, Miss Temple, marries and moves away, Jane decides to leave. She is desperate to see the world beyond Lowood and, at the age of eighteen, places an advertisement in the newspaper. She soon secures a position as governess in Thornfield Hall.