JSIS B 312 A – GWSS 312 A – GLITS 251 C
Autumn Quarter 2025
5 credits
Money, Love and Marriage:
Women in Europe and America
Professor: Nektaria Klapaki
Email: nklapaki@uw.edu
Class Schedule (in-person): M/W, 10:30-12:20 (CMU 226)
Office: THO 225B
Office Hours (in person or via Zoom): W, 9:00-10:00 AM & by appointment
Zoom link:
https://washington.zoom.us/j/2656597688?pwd=MFJybXhoTVM5M3JJaXVxWG0ybmNZQT09
Meeting ID: 265 659 7688
Passcode: Klapaki1@#
Course Description
Marriage for love or money? The age-old clash between a romantic version of marriage versus one based on economic considerations captures a range of key issues, such as gender and class relations, feminist versus patriarchal ideology, and the relationship between desire, marriage, and capital/power. Covering a broad chronological and geographical scope spanning across England, America and Greece, the course discusses the relationship between desire, capital, and the institution of marriage through three case studies and four novels (alongside some of their film adaptations): Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Henry James’s Washington Square, and Konstantinos Theotokis’s Honor and Love. We analyze these novels with the help of interdisciplinary perspectives and by drawing on seminal texts in the fields of literature, history, anthropology, gender, feminist literary criticism and cultural studies. Some of the specific topics we focus on are: forms of marriage payments; marriage settlements; the legal system of coverture; marriage as a form of patriarchal exchange; the marriage market; commodification of men and women in the marriage market; women and property rights; women and property versus women as property; the relation of dowries and fortunes to wo/men’s economic and social mobility; money and dowries as symbols of attitudes toward women and marriage; the relationship between women, wealth and desire in the 19th-century Anglo-American and Modern Greek novel; the marriage plot in the 19th-century Anglo-American novel; the trope of the blazon in the courtship novel.
Course Learning Objectives
- Analyze major themes in the history of marriage and dowry, and in the history of gender relations across different cultural contexts
- Critically examine key texts from the Anglo-American and Modern Greek novelistic traditions that explore the intersections of gender, marriage, desire, and capital
- Evaluate the relationship between patriarchal and feminist ideologies as represented in literature and historical contexts
- Apply interdisciplinary perspectives to interpret complex gender relations in various societal structures
- Develop and articulate well-reasoned arguments about the role of economic considerations in romantic relationships and marriage institutions
- Demonstrate enhanced critical thinking and analytical skills through literary analysis, class discussions, and written assignments
Required Reading and Other Material
- A series of articles (available on Canvas)
- Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (New York: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2016). The entire book (above edition) is available in electronic format through the UW Libraries.
- Henry James, Washington Square (New York, NY: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2016). The entire book (above edition) is available in electronic format through the UW Libraries.
- Alexandros Papadiamantis, The Murderess, trans. from the Greek by Peter Levi (New York: New York Review of Books, 1983). The book will be available for purchase at the UW Bookstore.
- Konstantinos Theotokis, What Price Honour? The Convict: Two Novellas, trans. from the Greek by J.M. Q. Davies (London: Colenso Books, 2020). The book will be available for purchase at the UW Bookstore.
- A series of films and other audio-visual material (available online through links on Canvas).