Miss Maria Ward was a lifeless woman who spent half if not
all of her life, sitting and smiling on the sopha.
After captivating the baronet, Sir Thomas Bertram and giving birth to
almost half a dozen children, she decided to hibernate for the rest of her life
as the upbringing of her children was bestowed upon the ‘liberal housekeeper’,
Mrs. Norris. Thank god, she dint consider sleeping with Sir Thomas a task or
that would have been delegated to someone else too! Who knows? So, basically,
Sir Thomas had married a lady who was as inert as the graves in Mansfield and
yet he remained loyal to her, this situation itself sings hymns about Thomas
Bertram’s morality. Okay, I agree, his morals were taking a holiday , when
overcome with avarice he wanted to marry off Fanny Price to the wealthy Henry
Crawford. But his greed can be ignored on the grounds that overall Sir Thomas
was a family man; he cared about his family and his wife’s relatives and thus
it is perhaps legitimate of him to want to extract some favour out of them
after years of fostering them. True, at times he got controlling but that can
also be justified to a certain degree for he took his role as the head of the
family, quite seriously, and with great care comes the surge to control. Quite
literally, I expected things to get fiery between Sir Thomas and the ass
licking; always there Mrs. Norris because she showed more interest in the
household and boosted his ego more than his dormant better-half.
A big pat on Sir Thomas Bertram’s back for remaining loyal
to Lady Bertram for she was practically just the mother of his children and in
no sense his wife and a companion in his ordeals. So 9/10 for Mr. Thomas for
controlling his hormones, being the family man he is, running the house all by
himself and for treating the slothful wife well.
Or, maybe Sir Thomas made use of his 12 month stay in
Antigua to sort out his affairs!
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