The Vicar of Wakefield

What is Goldsmith's view of marriage?

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Goldsmith censured certain playwrights for giving in their sentimental pieces a one-sided picture of domestic life, omitting its faults and presenting only its virtues, and teaching the spectators to pardon, or even applaud the foibles of sentimental characters in consideration of the goodness of their hearts, with the result that folly, instead of being castigated, was approved. Doubtless he expected the good novelist to avoid these faults. One should look squarely at life, refuse to apologize for the sentimentalist who seeks to escape from a morality which galls his kibe, and avoid viewing things through the false lens of romance. Goldsmith believed in love and did not think that it should be put in chains by the Marriage Act, but as for romantic matches and ecstatic raptures, they were found only in novels.

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