Joyce wrote:
Basically I guess what bothers me is EBD's perspective is always that the guy is right no matter what they are doing.
I'm not sure that it's so much that the guy is always right as that jealousy is a poisonous and misery-inducing emotion that's absolutely to be avoided. She implies much the same sorts of things about the friendship between Joey and Simone, where Simone is made miserable and Joey irritated by Simone's possessiveness in the early CS books.
I don't think we hear quite so much about jealousy these days, but I don't doubt it's still there. Perhaps this is another place where we have to remember that EMBD had a Victorian/ Edwardian upbringing, and some of the emphases, notably how much freedom you give your emotions, were very different...