came to light.
Lily's attitude is apparent when she meets Selden in the early part of the book and asks if he minds not having sufficient money to buy all the books he wants. She says then that a man may and a woman must marry for money. She makes a strong case for why women have to think differently than men in this society:
Your coat's a little shabby--but who cares? It doesn't keep people from asking you to dine. If I were shabby no one would have me: a woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself. . . We are expected to be pretty and well-dressed till we drop--and if we can't keep it up alone, we have to go into partnership (Wharton 12).
This is how marriage is treated in this social setting, as a partnership, with the woman providing her beauty and the man providing the clothes.
This is also a world of fragility, especially for women, and a woman can find herself on the outside of the social scene for the most innocent of reasons. This is what happens to Lily, who has done nothing wrong but who is thought to have committed an indiscretion with George Dorset while on a yachting trip. The fact that people believe this to have happened is sufficient to make her life change just as if it had happened. she finds herself ostracized and penniless, her prospects for finding a wealthy husband obliterated. She may think that all is not lost, since she tries to rekindle romance with the rich Rosedale, but he has changed his mind and no longer wants her. The man who does want her is the man she has truly loved, Selden, but before he can announce his intentions she has killed herself.
It is not marriage itself that is the destructive force in this novel but the way marriage is used by people of a certain social class, and also by those who want to be part of that social class. Marriage is a business proposition, a tool for advancement, a means to acquire security, and an agreement whereby each party g...