Trapped by False Promises — Jude the Obscure

Two months after the events of Chapter 8, Arabella meets the quack Vilbert on the road and returns from the conversation noticeably brighter. That evening she tells Jude she is pregnant. He turns pale, steadies himself, and agrees to marry her immediately: it is a complete smashing up of his plans, he says, but there is no question. Hardy shows the social machinery clicking into place: banns published the following Sunday, neighbours pronouncing Jude an honest fool doing the right thing, the parson finding it satisfactory. Drusilla bakes a bitter bride-cake. Arabella sends slices to Anny and Sarah labeled in remembrance of good advice.

Married life reveals immediate incompatibilities. Jude takes a roadside cottage between the Brown House and Marygreen, walks daily to Alfredston for work, and watches his books get crowded out of every corner.

On the wedding night, Arabella unfastens the false hairpiece she has worn throughout their courtship and hangs it on the looking-glass. Jude feels sudden distaste but suppresses it. Weeks later, Arabella tells Jude at bedtime that the pregnancy was a mistake, she was wrong. He sits bolt upright and stares. There is no explosion. He says simply that he has no more to say and lies back. Waking the next morning, he sees the world differently, groping toward a recognition he cannot yet name: that a social ritual requiring a man to forfeit years of careful preparation on the strength of a night's weakness, and a claim he had no way to verify, may itself be the flaw. The marriage remains.