In class on Tuesday we discussed why Catherine married Edgar and not Heathcliff I would like to talk a little more about that topic. Catherine and Heathcliff are soul mates they are one you ask yourself why wouldn't she marry the one her whole heart belongs to? Edgar on the other hand her head tells her to marry and you can look into that a few different ways. Many women in the times that Wuthering Heights was written didn't marry for love as most do today and I say it like that because there are still women and men that marry for money and social status.
If Catherine would have married Heathcliff she would have been with the one she truly loved and she may have been happy, but on the other hand is that enough some people would say yes but in Catherine's time and with the kind of women she was I don't believe it would have been enough. They had no money, they would be living with her brother Hindley and his family so Hindley would have eventually began to see his own sister and equal to Heathcliff and we know how mush Hindley despised Heathcliff. Catherine may have had love and companionship with Heathcliff but as long as she stayed at Wuthering Heights she would never have been truly happy Wuthering Heights was a prison to her it was her tomb.
On the other hand the reasons she married Edgar are for the same reasons most women of that time married. Catherine married Edgar to get out of her situation at Wuthering Heights, to make her better off socially, for example the nice clean home, the fresh stately clothes and the knowledge that she would be taken care of no matter what. It didn't matter if he wasn't her soul mate she believed she could learn to love Edgar and the knowledge that she would be socially and economically stable meant she would never have to live as she did at Wuthering Heights.
Many women in that time period and some women and men today still marry for those reasons. Even though men and women both can equally support themselves without having to marry in this day and age. Times have change enormously enough that women and men can join the workforce and make a life for themselves without have to marry for money or social status they can create their own with their own hard work. But those that still marry for those reasons have other motives. Which in my eyes is that they do not have the hard working ethic, the strong will power to make something of themselves and heaven forbid they may actually have to work for a living. Those that marry for social stability and money, only care for themselves and don't love the one they are with they just don't want to but forth the effort they want and easy life. Where as those who married for those reasons long ago did it because they had no other choice sometimes if they didn't marry for those reasons they may have died because they wouldn't have had another way to support themselves times were different then and the opportunities that we have today they didn't have back then.
Even if she did marry Heithcliff, she would probably become whiney and want to escape. When her and Heithcliff were happy was when she was the wild child. Now, after she has been shown the wonders of the rich life i doubt she will want to forever be that dirty girl. The richness was like her poison. And since Heithcliff went off and got rich when he heard her talking about what would happen about getting married to Edgar, if that never happened he would have never went off and got rich. Forever making him the gypsy poor boy. I dont think the love could have lasted becuase people, especially Catherine, want what they can't have.
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