] This passage also made me think about Helen Huntington from Tenant of Wildfell Hall . Though people were shocked by Anne Bronte's story at the time of its publication, it seems that her story had a basis of truth, sadly enough.

That book immediatedly sprang into my mind when I read the lines about Elizabeth Shackelton's unhappy lot. Though JA's husbands are often far from ideal, she never brought on the subject of plain physical abuse as pictured in Anne Bronte's story or in the appalling accounts of Vickery.
That true life stories in the book really moved me and the emotional part in me went quite mad at the authoress who viewed it matter-of factly from a strictly scientific, unemotional point of view. I have known before how rightless Georgian women were but to read first hand accounts of the disastrous results of such a profoundly unfair law system made it much more palpable and horrible for me.

] Certainly, marriage with Mr. Collins is not a happy prospect, but at least he won't be unkind or cruel to her.

I never have viewed it from that perspective before but Mr. Collins was indeed not such an unreasonable choice. I cannot imganine him goping berserk, he was much too self-aware of his status as a gentleman.