#the essex serpent

[lokitvsource]

The Essex Serpent (2022) - S01E06

[missmundanesblog]

I think that my favourite genre is “what the fuck is wrong with the forest”

[frodo-sam]

TOM HIDDLESTON as Will Ransome in THE ESSEX SERPENT Episode 04: Everything Is Blue 2022 | dir. Clio Barnard

[takenbtwind]

Been binging Tom Hiddleston media and I have an important chart for you all

[ariadnawin]

[persnyx]

waiting for them to call me in for my next confession

[lokibutterknife]

Tom Hiddleston and Oscar Isaac in The Hollywood Reporter's Drama Actor Roundtable (June 8, 2022)

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[didanagy]

THE ESSEX SERPENT (2022)

dir. clio barnard

[olemisekunst]

The Essex Serpent, Episode 2 (2022) dir. Clio Barnard

[holdmytesseract]

a/n: Welcome to my Hiddles characters masterlist! Have fun reading!

🌙 Afterglow

🌙 I Won't Let Go

🌴 Dangerous Paradise

🍸 I got a Man - but I want You {18+}

🍸 Miracles

🍸 All The Right Moves

🕯Mine

🕯In Love and Pleasure {18+}

🕯Hearts Aflame

🕯Attraction

🔍 Knight With Curls and Blue Eyes

[viv-annelore]

[un1ovab1e]

what’s your favorite character trope and why is it “hot priest doing things he probably shouldn’t”

[gaypoetsblog]

Officially adding Father Charlie to the 'Hot Priests' List

[queen-paladin]

disclaimer: yes, I am complaining about cheating in media. Because, yes, writers have the freedom to create what they want but if the morality in creation is free for all forms of media, but no piece of art is exempt from criticism, and that includes criticism on personal moral grounds. I betcha if I said Harry Potter is good, actually, everyone on here would flood my blog telling me I am wrong because of the author's intense prejudice. That being said, I am criticizing cheating in fiction, If you don't like that, don't interact

So often lately I see period dramas where the husband cheats on the wife (ex. Poldark, The Essex Serpent, Queen Charlotte, The Great)...and not only do I despise the cheating trope with every fibre of my being to where I get panic attacks when I consume the media...but specifically with period dramas...

Do these writers not understand the greater implications of a husband cheating on a wife during these periods? More than just the humiliation and heartbreak in the case of a loving, good marriage just like it is today.

In the Western world, probably until certain laws were enacted in the 1900's, if a woman married a man, she was legally his property. She had no legal identity under him. She was financially dependent on him. Any wages she made would automatically go to her husband. Her children were also not legally her children- they belonged to the father. If the husband died, even if the wife was still alive, the children were legally considered orphans.

Women could only rarely gain a divorce from their husbands. In England in the mid-1800's specifically, if a wife divorced a husband she had to prove he had to not only cheat but also be physically abusive, incestuous, or commit bestiality. On the other hand, a husband could divorce a wife just for being unfaithful. Because, kids, there were sexual double standards.

Getting married was often the endgame for a lot of women during that time. Sometimes you couldn't make your own living enough- marriage was a way to secure your entire future financially, with more than enough money to get by. If you were a spinster and middle class, you could get by with a job. But if you are an upper-class lady, the one thing a lady does not do is get a job and work. So upper-class spinsters basically were dependent on their families to get by (ex. Anne Elliott in Persuasion faces this with her own toxic family). As strange as it sounded today, marriage gave them some freedom to go about since a husband could be persuaded sometimes more easily than a father and one had a different home, their servants, etc. A husband was your foundation entirely for being a part of society, and standing up as your own woman.

So if a husband cheated on a wife, that was a threat to take all of that away.

He could give a lot of money that could be used to support his wife and children to the mistress. He could completely abandon said wife for the mistress. And since the wife legally couldn't get a job as he still lived, she would be dependent on any money he would said- and that is IF he sent over any money.

He could take her to court and publicly humiliate her to get a divorce away from her (look up the separation of Charles and Kate Dickens, he would call her mentally ill and say her cooking was bad and that she was having more children than they could keep up with all while having an affair and divorcing her to be with the misteress). And even if the wife was the nicest, more proper, goodest, more rule-abiding never-keeping-a-toe-out-of-line lady in town...as a man, the law was default on his side (look up Caroline Norton's A Letter to the Queen which details exactly that, the poor woman had her earnings as a writer taken by her husband and was denied access to her children from said husband)

So yeah...even if there was "no love" between them (and anytime the wife is portrayed as too boring or too bitchy so He HaS tO cHeAt is brought up is...pretty victim blamey)

So yeah. Period drama writers, if you have the husband have an affair ...just consider the reality of these things and address them, maybe punish the husband for once (*gasp* men facing consequences for their actions?!?!!), and if not, just please find other options and other tropes and devices for once.

[anna-scor]

[paperpersephone]

⚠️ Don't read the pages if you don't want spoilers!

The Essex Serpent was a pleasant surprise. I haven't watched many short series, but this one really convinced me to read the book it's based off of.

— PaperPersephone