Bertha Mason- Horror of the Victorian Marriage

Bertha Mason is mad, she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a mad woman and a drunkard!-as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points .Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it!

These are the very words with which Mr.Rochestor describes his wife, Bertha Mason. She is painted as the horror of the Victorian marriage and on grounds of her madness is locked up in an attic. She is accused of a bad character in addition to a devious background, of having a ‘Creole’ mother. She is the repressive wife who is left alone at the mercy of Grace Poole and is bereft of the rights of a wife.  Not only is she looked down upon as a “clothed hyena”, “a maniac”, and a “lunatic" but is also subjected to harsh and cruel living conditions.

                And because she is seen as mentally ill, Mr.Rochestor deems it appropriate to treat her whatever way he wants,  as reflected by the scene where Grace gives him a ‘rope’ and he  ‘binds her by a chair’ after she tries to strangle him. She is not seen as a mentally challenged individual rather Mr.Rochestor uses her to make himself look like the victim who suffered at the hands of his crazy wife. A deep rooted patriarchy comes to play her for the patriarch can treat his woman the way he wants to because she is not fulfilling her obligations of a dutiful wife; she can neither address his sexual desires nor look after his domestic needs and therefore is subjected to complete abandonment. Its important to  note that had the patriarch been inflicted with the mental illness , female morality, ‘the ideal and dutiful wife’ would have expected to rise to the occasion and take care of the patriarch but because it is a wife of the Victorian age ,it is completely appropriate to isolate her and confine her insanity to a room. Bronte’s double standards about the treatment of a mentally ill wife are appalling if not outright shocking!