Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

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Psychological Terminology:

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"Intimate partner violence (IPV) is characterized by patterns of violence within an intimate relationship across a range of physical, verbal, psychological, sexual, financial, and spiritual domains." [1] Of course, most of us are very familiar with this concept, we just prefer to use the common phrase 'domestic violence.'

 

Everyday there seems to be a breaking story on the news about it. Most people can name at least three movies off the top of their head that feature abusive spouses (Fried Green Tomatoes, Enough, and Double Jeopardy). Television shows, especially those involving the legal systems, seem saturated with prime examples of couples who took things too far. And, of course, who doesn't love a good country song ending with revenge on the abuser ("Before He Cheats", "Two Black Cadillac's", "Church Bells" ). Although domestic violence is far from being a rare occurrence, what's interesting is how often men are seen as the abuser and the women are seen as the victim.

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​"Despite evidence indicating that within some contexts IPV is perpetrated equally by men and women, societal narratives typically portray male perpetrators and female victims and regard female-perpetrated IPV as less serious and as occurring less frequently." [1] Even in this instance, women are not to be underestimated. While women will often choose to be less physically violent with their partners, that doesn't mean that they can't make your life a living hell should they feel so inclined. A rare example of a female perpetrator and a male victim is portrayed in the movie Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You'll notice how even the title calls attention to the bias in domestic violence cases. 

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Literary Context:

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With regard to Mr. Rochester's odd and manipulative behavior, much of it can be explained by his past and present relationships with abusive, deceitful, and clinically insane women. Of course, I don't mean to justify his actions. After all, not even Mr. Rochester tries to justify his actions. I mean only to reveal his motivations, which I feel are relevant to understanding his overall nature. Sometimes it is a common error to interpret his mysterious moods and manipulations with the same skepticism and repugnance as Mrs. Fairfax. Readers of this opinion are not often persuaded to view him through the eyes of Jane Eyre, fearing they may be reading rose-colored narration. However, Jane does not overlook his strange, harsh, and often melancholy behavior. She seems to point it out very matter-of-fact.

"He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description...  He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I saw more than once... a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate" (Bronte 175, 176). [3]

In other words, she was under the impression that his circumstances, which were still unknown to her, caused him to become harsh, guarded, and wrathful. This theory is strengthened over time the more Mr. Rochester opens up to Jane about his history. From his past, it can be a reasonable conclusion that he was adversely changed by traumatic situations, rather than having these negative traits in his nature.

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At the relatively young age of twenty, Mr. Rochester was married off to a wealthy, young girl named Bertha Mason in the West Indies. However, he married her without really getting to know her. True, he found her to be attractive and she flattered him with complements but they were thrust together so quickly that he never really got to know her character (Bronte 356). [3] He would soon come to regret this mistake "when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day, with her... because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse or imbecile--" (Bronte 357). [3] This line would appear to indicate that Bertha Mason's true character was not only disagreeable, but outright disrespectful, vulgar, and contemptuous. It would appear, at least to Rochester that before the marriage, Bertha was nothing but empty flattery; now that she got what she wanted she could do as she damn well pleased. 

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However, the truth of what her true character was remains a bit hazy, since Mr. Rochester didn't know her before marriage and it wasn't long afterward that Mrs. Rochester seems to develop a severe mental illness akin to schizophrenia. According to the Schizophrenia Bulletin, the onset of this illness can be a "catastrophic" experience for the spouse because "at the beginning, the delusions, catatonic symptoms, or dissocial behavior of the ill can often not be interpreted as an expression of mental illness; at first, the behavior and the symptoms of the spouse remain entirely inexplicable and irrational." [4] Mr. Rochester, who was wholly unaware of any possibility that she might go insane, took her behavior at face value. She appeared deliberately malicious while at the same time completely baffling. It got to be so bad that Edward Rochester couldn't even find a servant who was willing to "bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders" (Bronte 357). [3]

 

​The mental illness that ran in Bertha Mason's family was only made known to Mr. Rochester after his wife's violent, aggressive, and deranged behavior could not be explained by anything other than being clinically insane. All of a sudden he was alone, in a foreign country, left to take care of a woman who was slowly growing more violent and delusional by the day. In this time, there we no good options for his situation. He couldn't simply divorce her and give her back to her family to deal with because under the law becoming clinically insane was not a valid reason for divorce. This woman would forever be attached to his name. Whether he liked it or not, she was his responsibility.

 

​Rochester had the option of sending her to an insane asylum, where Bertha's own mother was going to be spending the rest of her days. Instead, he decided to take on the role of her care taker, which allowed her to remain at the home that they shared in the West Indies. This situation, more than any other, shows Mr. Rochester true nature because despite all the vitriol that Bertha Mason had spewed in his direction Rochester never treated her with hatred.

I lived with that woman upstairs four years... her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would not use cruelty. (Bronte 357) [3]

Eventually, this daily struggle took its tole on his mental state, causing him briefly to consider suicide and then a realization that he needed to escape his oppression (Bronte 359). [3] These thoughts are very similar to the ones of young Jane Eyre, which may be why they understood each other so much but seemed a bit strange to everyone else. It's difficult for those who have not been through trauma to be able to relate.

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In order to free himself from the isolation and cruelty of wife, Mr. Rochester moved to England where no one was familiar with the knowledge of his marriage. Again, he still had the option of putting her away in an insane asylum. However, doing so might have lead to people discovering that he was married to one of their inmates. He would have been in the same situation he was in the West Indies, being isolated from society. Just like today, people have a fear and prejudice against those who are mentally ill. Should the people in England learn of his marriage to a mad woman, no one would want to be associated with him. Though it may have been a selfish motive to keep her a secret from the world, at the same time Mr. Rochester didn't seem satisfied with placing her anywhere to hid her away. He didn't even want to place her in a slightly shabby house in the middle of nowhere (Bronte 350,351). [3] How much less would he have been comfortable with placing her in the horrors of a Victorian Era insane asylum?

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After placing Bertha in the most secluded but safest spot he had access to, which was in the attic of Thornfield Hall, he roamed the earth like a bachelor. Whether he had the moral ground to find love again is clearly a subjective call; however, my goal is not to justify his actions, only to reveal his motivations behind them. Mr. Rochester felt that, given her insanity, she simply wasn't an adequate partner to share his life with. That even though she deserved to be taken care of in a safe space, she could no more fill the space of a wife's position than a corpse (Bronte 368). [3] However, in the eyes of the law and the biblical law (which was the prevailing religious text in Victorian England) he was still cheating. True to the theme of 'just deserts' being delivered to characters in Gothic novels, in this endeavor Mr. Rochester finds only heartbreak and disappointment.

 

After searching the world over for a good, respectable woman, he couldn't seem to find anyone that suited him. Instead, he settled for mistresses, which are not exactly known for being the best society has to offer. While he might have very well not been able to find anyone that suited his taste, it is also likely that the problem was more with himself than with the women. Female-perpetrators often times attack the masculinity of a man, which degrades his confidence and level of self-esteem. [2] In his depressed state of mind he may have subconsciously felt that he wasn't worthy of the respectable women. Regardless, his next few relationships only served to fuel his disappointment, anger, and resentment towards women.

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First, with Celine Varens in chapter 15, who manipulated Mr. Rochester into providing her with basically anything she wanted from a place to live, a carriage to ride, and diamonds to wear. He was under the impression that she truly loved him, naïve as it been to believe the word of a known mistress, he was still shocked to discover that she had another lover. On top of that, through this tense and ugly relationship, Rochester learns that Varens' has a child, Adele, which she is claiming is his. Despite Varens' treachery and penchant for lying, Rochester decided to foster Varens' illegitimate child, knowing that she is most likely of no relation to him. He bore no legal or moral obligation towards Adele, but it seemed that the knowledge of her existence in poverty and his ability to give her a good life was enough for him to render it.

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His following relationships weren't much better, leading him to finally "rid himself of all mistresses" and come back home to England "in a harsh, bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream)." (Bronte 364) [3] Based on this kind of background, it is only natural for him to be skeptical of the motivations of every woman, including Jane Eyre. How was he to know if Jane Eyre was not another Bertha Mason with a dark secret or another Celine Varens only pretending to please him because of his wealth?

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His blatant and disrespectful manipulations of Jane Eyre were a test of her character, to prove to him the she really was an honest and respectable women interested in him, separate from his wealth. After all his paranoia about the true machinations of women proved to be true in the case of Blanche Ingram (Bronte 298). [3] During this time, as result of the marriage market and the lack of rights for women, it was common for women to marry as a means of survival or financial security rather than love. Who knows how many other women he encountered over the ten years he spent searching for a companion who had a similar intent?

 

Putting all of this into context, it gives a better understanding as to why Mr. Rochester was at some points very amiable towards Jane and at other points downright insulting. For example, when he tells her that "you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points” (Bronte 161). [3] These harsh insinuations about her character were as much insult to her as they were a warning to himself. The last thing he wanted was to be tricked, yet again, by the flattery of women. He seems to invent situations just so he can to seek out the truth of her nature. When he told her of Adele's background, he ends the explanation asking her "...now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and... beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.—Eh?” (Bronte 173). [3] When he gathered those of high society, especially the company of Blanche Ingram, at him home only to use them to inspire jealousy in Jane Eyre. When he pretended to be a gypsy in order to get her to admit that she cared for him. When he pretended that he was going to marry Miss Ingram in order to get her to admit that she cared for him. Typically, the audience can forgive him for these falsehoods, understanding his genuine love for Jane and his fear of vulnerability.

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What's interesting is that Rochester is not typically forgiven by readers for keeping Bertha Mason a secret from Jane before their impending marriage. Looking back, Rochester himself admitted that it "was cowardly; I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first" (Bronte 367). [3] Naturally, he feared that she would retreat from him the moment she new the truth of strange occurrences in Thornfield Hall. Nevertheless, he should have trusted her with this information and had the resolve to respect her decision to stay or leave. However, he was so hungry for companionship and so blinded by desire that he simply couldn't risk the possibility of being alone again.

 

Plus, trusting others wasn't something he was accustomed to doing. After all Rochester had been tricked and betrayed by nearly everyone he knew, including members of his own family. Remember that for the sake of keeping wealth in the family, Edward Rochester's father and brother arranged to have him marry a wealthy woman since his father would not allow his second son to be an heir to his wealth (Bronte 355). [3] Both members knew that the bride they chose for Edward would most likely become insane, "but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against [Rochester]" (Bronte 356). [3]

 

However, just to be perfectly clear, no matter what brutal things have been done to Rochester, it does not absolve him of his guilt. It only explains that his motivations in keeping it a secret was not to injure or betray anyone, but to protect his happiness. Possibly understanding these motivations, or possibly being blinded by love, Jane Eyre forgives him instantly. But that is not enough to save him from what the author sees as 'just deserts' according to the standard themes in Gothic novels. Rochester pays dearly for his offense against Jane. He losses his home, his wealth, his status, and his health all on one fell swoop. His estate literally falls on top of him during his failed attempt to save his manic wife from jumping off the roof of Thornfield Hall that she set on fire (again). That's right, Rochester tries to save his devilishly crazy wife from a fire that she intentionally set off in order to kill him!

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Hasn't he suffered enough? Doesn't he deserve a happy ending with Jane Eyre?

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