Felicity in marriage among people of all ages demands as a basis a near approach to an equitable equality, and that nature, custom, and fact have combined to obtain, by placing between husbands and wives, for the sustenance of both, such a superiority in the former, that when it is weakened or absent each cure to grief, this proving the great necessity for its ever present and uniform existence.
Victorian London - Women - Courtship, Marriage and Romance. The London Journal, 1871. Web.
The goals of "felicity" and "domestic bliss" so often mentioned in Jane Austen's work, as well as that of her contemporaries, are not as happy as a reader in the 21st century might interpret.
More often than not, the domestic sphere was taught to be a subservient environment to the passing fancy of the husband. His moods, his failures, his complaints all became the fault of the wife for not maintaining the home, listening to him, or allowing him to fully control his home. The balance of power placed in the man's hands and enforced by a patriarchal society set up an environment that any version of today's "marital bliss" had no possibilility of existing in.
