Downton Abbey Season 1 Episode 3

This week's episode of Downton Abbey consisted of an interesting twist. The two main events which occurred in this episode surrounded Mary and Bates. First, two men from out of the area stayed at the household for a few days. Naturally, Mary took advantage of the opportunity to show interest in one of them. She chose which of the men she wished to pursue and did so bluntly. The man pursued back in extremely inappropriate ways for this time and culture. He intruded on her bedroom late at night and was able to convince Mary to sleep with him. In the middle of the activity the man suddenly died. Not knowing what to do, Mary got her maid as well as her mother to help move the body back to his room. However, they could not do so without a few of the household servants knowing what really happened. Mr. Bates attempts to make more progress fixing his leg by buying a contraption that goes around the lag and digs into it attempting to straighten the bones. It is extremely painful to him and when he cannot hide it any longer he is encouraged to throw the device into a lake by one of the servant girls. He vows to never do something like this again. In this episode of Downton Abbey the viewer sees more into the traits of individual characters in the show.

One theme that I noticed throughout this episode is the unusual representation of women in this time. Females were expected to be aids to their husbands and always represent themselves in a respectable manner. In this episode we see Mary throwing herself at a foreigner as well as engaging in premarital intercourse with him. Some of the women in the household also take part in lying and deception by working together to move the body from Mary's room to the guest room. In another instance, one of Mary's sisters begins to pursue Matthew on her own. She practically asks him out on a date. Matthew, however, is still courting after Mary. In this week's episode the women did not represent themselves in a respectable manner at all. It was very interesting to see women acting in such a way in this historical setting.

In a way, women acting out of their societal roles of that time is supported by Scripture. There are many times in the Bible when women take a stand or do some action that would be considered against the norms. One example can be found in the book of Esther. In this day, a Queen was chosen based on her virginity and physical appearance (Esther 2:3). It is clear that women were not desired for any more reason than this. Yet, when Esther is established as Queen, she steps out of the societal norms by making a request before the King even when it may mean death for her to do so (Esther 4:16). Through her actions God's people are saved and the Jews are not killed. This is one instance in Scripture when women breaking out of the societal norms is supported. However, it should be noted that there are appropriate ways to resist the norms as well as inappropriate, destructive ones as well.