] It's too bad he didn't, considering the rotter Shackleton turned out to be! I do wonder what made her do it. Her life got so much worse after she married him, poor thing...

in a way and was bound by the general view on the virtues of a woman. While she might have flirted with rebellion, she never really did something daring, no clandestine, nocturnal visits with Parker, no outright flaunting of convention ever on her part. As I interpret it, she was reluctant to marry Parker because he was not considered such a good catch and she might have just waited for a better opportunity. Though she loved her husband I never thought she was ever madly in love with him. The way she dealt with him was far from passionate! There was a lot of calculation on her part. Not in a wicked sense, though!

When she met Shackleton she might have been head over heels in love for the first time and reason flew out at the window. Since she was loath to embark on a clandestine affair (not her kind of thing) she had to marry him. And since it was a marriage mainly based on fleeting physical attraction it turned out to be so bad. I think it's not a coincidence that Elizabeth lost hold over her husband as she began to age and surely lost much of her (physical) appeal. And her rotter of a husband who was frustrated in not having wed a younger and more attractive wife began to taunt her mercilessly. A true tragedy. It could have been used as a preachy moral Georgian tale of the dangers of marriages solely based on passion.