] ....if an indulgent husband let them be. They were entirely dependent on his good will and that's the main difference between then and today for me. Not even in the best of marriages men and women were on equal footing. Actually a Georgian woman had to resort a lot to scheming and negotiating in areas which we take for absolutly granted today.

True but from what I've read,the ladies used that to their advantage-after my post this morning,I read a few more pages and found it amusing that there were actual letter writing manuals for girls to use to talk their fathers into submission to their marriage wishes. It didn't always work-Fanny Burney managed to plead her way out of an unwanted marriage proposal but Betty Atkinson was not so lucky.

Fortunately,today's woman doesn't have to resort to tears and overdone pleas (or have their fathers decide on whom they should marry)but I feel that the Georgian ladies deserve some credit for putting up some resistence,in their own way.