The literary adventure known as Wuthering Heights takes place early 1800s.Characters like Heathcliff take advantage of 18th century marriage laws.He forced his son to marry a neighbouring girl.By doing this his son Linton, was given all the property that his wife Cathy owned.18th century marriage laws are seen as one person and that person being the husband.This entitled the husband to al of the wifes personal property.Cathy was the heir to the property Thrushcross grange.When Linton and her got married her property went to Linton.The thing is Linton was dying and knowing this ,Heathcliff forced Linton to write in his will that Heathcliff got all of his belongings.Because of this law Heathcliff was able obtain land that was never to be thought that it would become his.Why do you think Heathcliff was very easily able to manipulate the law?Do you think laws like these had any good benefits?
In the 18th century wife beating was widely tolerated,even a judge said that a husband could beat his wife with a stick so long as it was no thicker than his thumb.The novel Wuthering heights is no stranger to violence even domestic violence.Out of all the romantic relationships in the novel not many turn out bad.But why was this violence so commonly accepted?In the novel the characters Heathcliff and Isabella get married,she is infatuated with him and he does not return love to her.Much later in the novel Isabella has grown immune to the violence that goes on around her and even starting to enjoy seeing others suffer.Isabella makes fun of Heathcliff and he responds by throwing a knife at her.Their relationship is so broken and torn that his first response is to hurl a blade at his wife.Luckily these days stuff like this is outlawed but back then what Heathcliff did probably would not get him in as much trouble as if something were like that to occur today.Spousal abuse still happens a lot,you see it in the news all the time.Do you think we should have tougher laws on domestic violence and spousal abuse?How would you crack down on these crimes?
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