These chapters in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton allowed me to see the contrast between men and women of this society. The fact that Rosedale was so eager to marry Lily just under a year earlier and now turned her down was astonishing. However, he was still wanting to be "friends with benefits." Wharton says on page 206, " 'What i syour idea of being good friends?' she returned with a slight smile. 'Making love to me without asking me to marry you?' Rosedale laughed with a recovered sense of ease. 'Well, that's about the size of it, I suppose.' " Mr.Rosedale's frankness here was exactly what I needed to grasp the thought process of men during these times. Rosedale acknowledges that Miss Lily Bart's worth and value have gone down as the year has progressed. I suppose my thoughts of this society were correct. Once a woman is talked about in high drama and scandals, men cannot afford to go after them. Once anyone is labeled as scandalous, there is no fixing it.
The fact that Rosedale was still wanting Lily to have relations with him without marrying him is beyond me. I cannot imagine coming up to me and expecting me to go along with that. It was as if Rosedale put himself so high up on his pedestal that he felt Lily would feel special to be his lucky friend.
This isn't so different from our society today. Many young and old men subject themselves to this way of thinking. Starting as young as high school, some boys seem to think that girls want to be used and then thrown away. Sorry to those men, but all women with any self-respect will gladly turn that down.
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