Narrating Marriage in Eighteenth-Century England and France

Drawing on a wide range of English and French fiction and advice literature, this study analyzes the problems of representation that emerge in light of the changing definition of marriage from one of hierarchy to companionship in the eighteenth century. Ranging from representations of ideal domesticity to the problems of intimacy and marital discontent, Roulston explores the paradox of the modern marriage as both utopian and unlivable, and expands the debate around its evolution.