I would rather be a man toiling, suffering-nay, failing and successless-here, than lead a dull prosperous life in the old worn grooves of what you call more aristocratic society down in the South, with their slow days of careless ease. It is suggested that her chastity is thus a central part of her makeup. At one point she wishes she was a Catholic so she might enter a nunnery. Margaret eventually convinces herself that she will never marry. These aspersions upon her moral character send her into impassioned responses of indignancy and refutation. Thornton assumes she was meeting with a lover at the station. Later she is overcome with embarrassment when Mrs. Thornton to shield him from the raging mob, she once again is perturbed that the observers have mistaken her behavior for a sign of love. Margaret may be progressive and bold in other areas of her character, but her sexuality is a source of shame and something to be repressed. Margaret has internalized the pervasive gender norms of her society and is thus extremely uncomfortable when she realizes that a man -Henry Lennox -has noticed her as a woman he desires to marry. Their sexuality was to be hidden away any putative improper behavior was censured. Victorian society required women to be modest, chaste, and demure. In the first place, Margaret felt guilty and ashamed of having grown so much into a woman as to be thought of in marriage.
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