Marriage

Marriage is a prevalent theme throughout "Excellent Women." In London in the 1950s, being unmarried over the age of thirty dubbed a woman as a spinster with little to no hope of ever catching a husband. There is much said about unmarried women, from Mrs. Morris' opinion that it is unnatural for a woman to live alone to Everard Bone and William Caldicote's observations that excellent women such as Mildred should never marry. Marriage is for women who are less sensible and not as capable as Mildred. While Mildred is somewhat flattered to think that she is an excellent woman, there is also a sense of disappointment since it seems that men do not see her as "the marrying kind."

The approach to courtship throughout the book is rather archaic given the time period. The author has been compared to a modern Jane Austen and the tone of...