6.2 Kate Chopin – "A Respectable Woman" (1894)

Author/context: Chopin (1850–1904), American writer of the turn of the century, famous for TheAwakening — a sharp observer of women's inner lives in a society that had legally subordinated them. A Respectable Woman was first published in 1894.Synopsis: Mrs. Baroda's husband invites his old friend, the quiet, poetic journalist Gouvernail, to stay at their plantation. Expecting to dislike him, she finds herself unaccountably attracted. Troubled by her own feelings — she is, after all, "a respectable woman" — she leaves for the city before the visit ends, telling her husband she will be friendlier "when he comes again" — a closing line whose irony Chopin leaves deliciously open.Themes: gender roles and "respectability"; marriage and desire; self-restraint and self-deception; women's interior life unseen by men.Legal issues raised:1. Women's legal status in the 1890s — the era of coverture: a married woman's legal personality was merged into her husband's (no independent contracting, limited property); reforms like the Married Women's Property Acts were recent or pending. "Respectability" was the social code enforcing what law imposed.2. Privacy, autonomy and consent — the story is a study of the private sphere law historically refused to enter (marital relations), and of the modern turn to legal protection of autonomy and dignity.3. Legal personhood and capacity — full civil capacity for women is a 20th-century achievement; the…