Marriage between older husbands and younger wives was common in nineteenth-century literature, and as Godfrey skillfully argues, provides a useful window into the dynamics of the patriarchic paradigm. Examining canonical and non-canonical texts from Sense and Sensibility to Dracula, this study finds that literary January-May marriages respond to distinctively nineteenth-century anxieties regarding gender roles by deploying a surprising range of modes-parody, incest, aesthetics, horror, economics, and love. The January-May Marriage in Nineteenth-Century British Literature ultimately argues...
Marriage between older husbands and younger wives was common in nineteenth-century literature, and as Godfrey skillfully argues, provides a useful win...
