I am trying to figure out why this poor girl keeps making her situation worse. I have read several books recently from the 1800's with this same concept. Girl wants to have a man who meets the following requirements: well dressed and money, good looking helps but the idea is spend money on me, promote me in society and I am all yours. With MADAME BOVARY we had the farm girl with some education, getting pawned off by her father to the doctor. She married him because she thought she would have a better life, but then she got bored and depressed, along comes a young man who can be around her all the time paying her compliments and she starts fantasizing about him. But he leaves town and a more promising man comes along. In SISTER CARRIE, some scenario without the marriage, she comes to the big city of Chicago, too shy to go and ask for a job, wants something better than what her sister has, wanders the city, meets the man she met on the train. He sets her up with clothes, money and a place. She does not have to work, but she meets a man with more money, who just happens to be a friend of the man who has set her up. She feels he can give her an even better life. So Sister Carrie becomes the other woman.
But this theme does not stay in the 1800's even the movies we see today have that theme. Woman has a man who she is about to marry and then some other hunk walks onto the scene. She likes him better maybe not for money reasons, but still there is the idea of bettering ones position. Understood but it does seem to promote the idea that women cannot make up their minds. That old expression about women being fickle, probably promoted from the 1800's.
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