In this story, we read through the struggles of failed marriages which are consumed by manipulative partners and false promises of commitment. The Woman in White is a story about marital schemes and forbidden love as different aprtners' schemes start to fall through as secrets are unveiled. As this story takes place around the year 1850, marital laws hardly existed. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History contains an excerpt which states, "Men have been taught that they are absolute monarchs in their families, (even in a republican country,) ever since the world began, and that to kill a wife by inches, is not murder..." Simply put, once married, a woman holds no rights whatsoever despite marriage being so joyously celebrated. Throughout The Woman in White, we watch as these characters leap over the bindings of marriage to eventually reach happiness. This includes murder.