[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.
Antonia Fraser, The Wives of Henry VIII
dignity, empowerment, feminism, gender, history, independence, inequality, marriage, married-life, matrimony, men, misogyny, perception, self-abnegation, self-determination, social-norms, subjugation, wedlock, women, women-s-rights