Jude the Obscure Marriage Quotes

Arabella is a borderline soap opera villain. All she needs is dramatic music and some serious eyeliner and she'd be perfect. Everything is a scheme with her. She can't let things take their natural course. If she wants to marry Jude, well she's just going to go make it happen—no matter what lies she has to tell to achieve her goal.

Jude might be honorable to a fault. His honor is called upon both times he marries Arabella: first, because she says she's pregnant (even though she's not), and second, because she tells Jude that he asked her to marry him and he doesn't want to go back on a promise (even though he was stinking drunk at the time, and he has no memory of any kind of marriage discussion). He's like a knight of old when it comes to honor. Except instead of slaying dragons, Jude gets stuck with a pretty horrible woman. Jude's fate says something about Hardy's opinion of knight-like honor in today's world: it'll get you into trouble.

Here they are: Jude's early, critical thoughts on marriage (and perhaps Hardy's, too). How can something be a positive influence on your life if it forces you to give up the dreams you have had for years?

Let's break that down into simple, everyday speak. Just because you love someone for a minute and decide to get married doesn't mean that you're actually going to like each other for the rest of your lives. Again, not the most romantic view of marriage, here—but there is some truth to Hardy's concerns.

It turns out that Jude is right: Sue really doesn't seem to fully understand what she is getting into when she marries Phillotson. This is one of those times in the novel where if one person had just listened to the advice of another, things could have worked out differently for all involved. Of course, if that happened, there wouldn't be any novel, so you know, take it for what it is.

Speaking of Sue's marriage…here she does her best to demonstrate that the social contract and societal "mould" of marriage is just something that people are forced to squeeze into. It does not actually relate to what people are truly like. Even though Sue is socially and legally "Mrs Richard Phillotson," she still feels like a woman out on her own.

Apparently, according to Jude and Sue's Aunt Drusilla, there is a kind of old family curse (cue lighting and scary violin sounds) on the Fawleys: they are somehow just not cut out for marriage. Aunt Drusilla remains opposed to marriage for members of her family until her dying day, because she had seen all of the horrible things these husbands and wives have done to each other over the years. If taken a bit more seriously, this anti-marriage family marriage curse could be the plot for some terrible B horror movie—any takers?

Hey, Phillotson might be old and kind of boring, but he's pretty enlightened at times in the book. This is one of those times. He knows that it's wrong to force Sue to stay with him if she doesn't love him and if she is unhappy. This was a revolutionary thought for the time. Remember, allowing Sue to leave costs Phillotson his livelihood.

Gillingham tells Phillotson that breaking apart a marriage is a social danger. If people just did whatever they wanted to do, in spite of the legal bonds of marriage, there would be "general domestic disintegration." And in fact, we've seen a lot of similar kinds of debates around the issue of gay marriage today—clearly, the place of marriage as a spiritual and social structure is still something people disagree on, even though it's over a century since Hardy published Jude the Obscure.

Even an old-fashioned dude and traditional thinker when it comes to marriage like Phillotson is able to see that Sue should have the right to leave if she really, really wants to. Hardy spends a lot of time with Phillotson on this subject even though it doesn't necessarily drive the plot forward. Why do you think Hardy does that?