Jane Eyre/Headscratchers

• Why did not Mr. Rochester just get a divorce, or perhaps annulment? Yes, it had to be granted by an Act of Parliament. Was he not rich and influential enough to get an MP to introduce a Private Members Bill? The obvious insanity would make an easy bill to pass?
  • I'm not the only one to be bugged by this: http://margaretmoore.blogspot.com/2007/01/jane-eyre-divorce-and-needs-of-author.html
  • Mr. Rochester states in the book that he couldn't divorce her precisely because she was insane.
  • I thought the implication was that his wife's family was richer and more influential than he was, but it's been a long time since HS english.
  • Insanity wasn't legal grounds for divorce, probably something to do with "in sickness and in health". There's an Agatha Christie novel written a hundred years later where one character still can't get a divorce because his wife is insane. Also, acts of Parliament were really not that easy to get passed. For starters, they were very expensive and, secondly, they were not really for the likes of people like Rochester, who might be gentry but sure as hell isn't an aristocrat. (Think of the difference in social status between Gilbert Markham and Arthur Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.) Even then, there were a lot of aristocratic marriages in the period who basically agreed to live separately and have lovers, because getting a divorce was just that much of a problem, and that's before you even get into the stigma of it all.
• Why didn't Jane go to Lowood or the Reed's after her marriage failed? Both places would have let her stay long enough to advertise for a new job.
  • Because she was incredibly distressed and obviously not thinking straight? Because the Reeds was a place of utter torment? Because Lowood might not be particularly welcoming to an ex-pupil who has left her place of employment under suspicious circumstances? Because she doesn't have an A to Z map, or any means of transport, and is a woman totally without friends and money, and therefore vulnerable and powerless?
  • ^ This, with added emphasis on, "The Reeds was a place of utter torment." As well, she mentions that after John Reed's death, Eliza went into a convent and Georgiana took up a high-living life, eventually marrying. If Jane had gone to Reed Hall, there might not have been anyone there to help, even if they were inclined to.
  • The real reason is probably that Jane knew those would be the first places Rochester would look, and she wanted to escape him entirely.