So, Small House at Allingham - should we really be so aggrieved that she doesn’t fulfil her family’s ambitions for a happy ending?
AU contraire - I love that Trollope doesn't take the easy way out and give her a (maritally) happy ending - but it did pee me off that er "Adonis" ruined her for other men! I was glad that years later when he was a miserable balding widower and came sniffing round again, she kicked him into touch. (Not Trollope's actual words) He must have thought that she was still holding a torch for him, the arrogant git!
TBH we have little idea how difficult life was for an unmarried woman even at the beginning of the last century, let alone before. Until the Married Woman's Property Act in about 1870, anything a woman owned became her husband's to do with as he would the minute that ring was on her finger. There was no such thing as marital rape. Unmarried women was treated with contempt unless they were very, very wealthy. No vote, no contraception, no job security, no right to refuse sex, or to indulge in it (if you wanted to) without becoming a social pariah - no rights at all really.
We can only begin to imagine the courage of the women who fought for the rights we enjoy today.
Charlotte Collins had a number of sisters - her father's money (such as it was) would have been in the main part settled on her brothers. She was a clever woman - she got herself a husband (and therefore status) and home, and as she said herself, Mr Collins had many faults, but he was not vicious. He wouldn't beat her, or abuse her, and as long as she bolstered his ego, he would cherish her. She did well by the standards of he time, I think.