]

[Constance Ring] is a 1885 Norwegian novel that explores the limited, powerless life of a young married woman. Constance's first marriage happens when she is still a very young woman to a husband 20 years older than her. At first things are ok, but she is increasingly disgusted by him and refuses any intimacy with him. She is young and beautiful and her husband tries everything to make her open to him, but in the end he turns to their also young and beautiful maid. When Constance finds out she considers divorce, to the horror of her family. They understand her situation and expect her to accept it.

Constance's second marriage starts slow, but she grows to love her husband. Discovering his past lovers, though, ruins her trust and love. Her last lover also betrays her, which is the final betrayal she can handle.

I thought this was a really good novel that explores the double standard imposed on women. Constance simply can't accept that men are allowed to indulge their sexual desires with any woman at any time and people simply accept it or pretend not to see it. She feels badly for the women of a lower social stratus who are even more powerless than she is. She feels betrayed that men she is married to and/or loves would indulge in these sexual relationships without love, whether it occurs before her relationship with them or during. And she seems to only partially ever awaken to the joy of physical intimacy with any of her lovers because of these thoughts and feelings.

I found this book in the [500 Great Books by Women] that I've been exploring this year. I've read a bit of Norwegian literature (well, of what is available in English translation) and I hadn't heard of this author. I'm glad I read it and recommend it to readers who enjoy this era and topic.

Original publication date: 1885
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian translated to English by Judith Messick
Length: 289 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/where I acquired the book: purchased used copy
Why I read this: 500 great books by women ( )

Written in 1885 Norway by early feminist Amalie Skram, this is a manifesto of sorts, criticizing the patriarchy, the double standard of sexuality, and the institutions of marriage and religion. The main character, a young woman named Constance Ring, is in a man’s world and resents women’s subservient role in it. She’s also in a religious world, and resents how it makes divorce even in the case of unhappiness or adultery very hard to obtain. She openly questions whether God exists, and points out how often society men have mistresses, often with lower-class women, and just write it off as meaningless physical pleasure. Everyone in society then looks the other way, so much so that Constance exclaims “if this is true and everybody accepts it, why don’t we get rid of this hypocritical institution? Why in the world don’t we practice polygamy openly?”

There are also some political bits here, as the characters span the spectrum from deeply conservative to wildly radical, and I thought it was interesting that the polarization led to the same kind of rhetoric and demonization that we see in today’s America (“Everything the Left wants is fundamentally destructive to society. My God – if they get power…” … my God, didn’t Lindsey Graham just say that?). Skram also touches on the plight of the poor, and through Constance makes it clear that she doesn’t “believe all that rubbish about anyone being able to find work who wants it – not enough to live on, at least.”

I sympathize for Constance, and there is great power when she is repulsed by her husband, an older, boorish man, and when “she didn’t feel, would never feel, it was her duty and her calling to make this fat, self-satisfied man happy, a man who never asked about her feelings, who treated her as if she didn’t have a soul in her body…” On the other hand, she’s so ice cold emotionally, and the combination of being bored with life and disgusted with people all makes for a pretty unlikeable character as the book goes on in its second half, which is also a little melodramatic. At one point she reaches a decision point and can go off and get a job, but decides to marry instead. She soon finds herself unhappy again, and seems caught between hating the conventional order of things and not wanting to embrace free love, or maybe between detesting the hypocrisy of pervasive adultery, and not wanting to admit many men have sexual needs. Even in her reaction to an episode to visiting a slum and helping the poor, when she sees how broken things are and the hypocrisy in others who are helping, she simply withdraws in negativity.

Still, all in all, this is a remarkable work, and Skram deserves credit for how clearly and honestly she puts forth her views, which were incendiary at the time. It’s also a good book to read while touring Norway, and to hear a feminine voice amidst her contemporaries, Ibsen and Bjørnson, who we hear so much more about.

Just one more quote, on adultery:
“The horror of being an unfaithful wife was so ingrained in her. Adulteress – whore. Oh, those words were unspeakable! There were better ways to describe this. ‘A woman only belongs to the man she loves,’ Mrs. Gyllembourg had written. And even if…Suppose Lorck were in love with a woman who wanted him as well. Would he think twice about it? Not for a minute. Not him, nor any of the other married men she knew. Why should women have all these scruples? Measure for measure – that was life’s only valid principle.” ( )