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The Columbia History of the British NovelIn the seventeenth century, a promise of marriage was binding, and failure on the part of one of the pair subsequently to marry was grounds for legal action. But amatory fiction depicts a new universe, where a woman who trusts the promises of her suitor does so at her own risk, and earns as much scorn as pity when she finds herself abandoned. Even marriage vows were subject to the new provisionality. It is no coincidence that the first parliamentary divorce was granted in 1698. The events of the Glorious Revolution constituted what Staves calls "the most dramatic Restoration crisis of conscience over oath-taking," and provided the immediate context of the obsessive concerns of amatory fiction. A short review of those events may be in order. In 1688, England's unpopular Roman Catholic king, James II, the legitimate but controversial heir, fled to France in fear of his life, wrongly believing that his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange were advancing with a large army to force him from his throne ...» |
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