Matrimonial Failure in George Eliot’s Middlemarch: through the perspective of Social Exchange Theory

Abstract

This paper aims at to analyze the causes of matrimonial failure in George Eliot’s Middlemarch among the central couples: Casaubon and Dorothea and Dr. Lydgate and Rosamond _ by applying Social Exchange Theory and its principles (rewards and costs, Comparison level, relational resources, trust and commitment, and marital solidarity), through which their causes of failure of conjugal relationship are meticulously analyzed, and not fulfilling of these cause failure and fragility in central marriages in the novel.