The idea of marriage as an imprisoning institution is further seen when we take a close look at the descriptions of the spaces the married couples inhabit. In The Custom of the Country, Wharton writes, “for a long time [Undine] had continued to sit were [Raymond] had left her, staring at the portraits on the walls as though they had joined hands to imprison her […] the room was a mere cell” (471). This quote is representative of how Wharton literally views marriage as a prison. Feminist critic Judith Fryer explains, “the drawing room encloses the family, minimizing its contact with the outside world” (13). Indeed, Undine, being stuck in the drawing room, has minimal “contact with the outside world”. She feels trapped by her surroundings – both the inanimate objects such as the paintings and the people who also inhabit the space – namely her mother in law. While Raymond is able to step outside and is therefore not enclosed, she remains where her patriarchal husband tells her to, confined to the drawing room.
While not a drawing room, in a similar manner, Charity’s room in the red house and the hotel room also serve as a space of confinement. Wharton depicts the latter space in this imprisoning way, “Charity stood among these cross-currents of life as motionless and inert as if she had been one of the tables screwed to the marble floor. All her soul was gathered up into one sick sense of coming doom, and she watched Mr. Royall in fascinated terror “(127). By comparing herself to one of the screws, we get the sense that Charity feels tied down by this man as she is unable to escape her life with him. Being that this scene takes place on their wedding night, the “impending doom” is seemingly her fear that he will try and make a sexual advance toward her. In this way, the space they are in – the beautiful hotel room – can be seen as becoming a prison cell where she awaits a fate she cannot control.
In addition to the space and symbols representing the idea of marriage as an imprisoning union, the husbands act patriarchal and controlling towards the women, something that also traps them in a negative situation. Feminist literary critics Sarah Grand and Elizabeth Ammons supply useful means for understanding how suffocating and patriarchal Raymond de Chelles and Mr. Royall are towards Undine and Charity respectively. Grand writes Man “jeered at us because we had no knowledge. […] then declared that our mistaken impression of it proved us to be senseless creatures”(31). This idea is clear in both works. In different ways both men treat the women as “senseless creatures”. This phenomenon is seen in Summer when Mr. Royall speaks down to Charity “Charity- Charity Royall, you listen” (17). Similarly, in The Custom of the Country this idea is clear when Raymond de Chelles repeatedly says to Undine “you don’t understand” (453). Saying to someone over and over again that they do not understand, as Raymond does to Undine, is of course belittling as it signals that person does not see you as capable of understanding.
The patriarchal nature of marriage takes on a new and far more disturbing form in Summer by virtue of the fact that Mr. Royall acted as Charity’s father and now seeks her hand in marriage. Ammons poignantly remarks, “the incestuous nature of patriarchal marriage is the largest, the enveloping, subject of Summer” (133). Indeed, Charity and Mr. Royall’s relationship does lie at the heart of the novella, is borderline incestuous, and is patriarchal towards her. Ammons also points out, the marriage to Mr. Royall, “dooms Charity Royall to perpetual daughterhood” (141). The fact that Charity will live in the same house she grew up in, and under the same ‘protection’ from the father figure as she had growing up, is of course belittling and debilitating to Charity as it removes the possibility for her to truly become her own woman.
The marriages both revolve around patriarchal behaviors from the husbands towards their wives.