The horrifying indifference toward Dorothea : Middlemarch

As you might expect, all of Tipton is in a tizzy about Dorothea Brooke's decision to marry the "elderly" (50, I guess that was old in 1860?) Casaubon - a decision we know to be a dreadful one because of George Eliot's trenchant portrayal, caricature almost, of the old reverend - just reading any one of his comments to Dorothea during they're engagement and you'll laugh - he's a totally ludicrous character and it's impossible to see why a bright and attractive (and wealth) young woman like Dorothea would choose him - not only because of his pedantic, dry, dull behavior but also because of his utter contempt for an intelligent woman. Eliot is making a point - and a good one - about the subjugation of women in all of the professions - Dorothea, obviously highly intelligent though not well educated (because of her gender), wants to marry Casaubon to completely subjugate herself to his will and his so-called genius (D. should be able to see that his project, Te Key to All Mythologies, is absurd and if he hasn't made serious progress by age 50 he never will): she says in particular that she would like to read to him - even text that she cannot understand (Latin and Greek, e.g.) to spare his eyes. OK, so we know it's a terrible decision, and so does her sister, Celia, and so does the neighbor Mrs. Cadwallader, though her motives are more personal pride and pique - she'd had another match all set up, and now that's fallen apart - but the men just let her have her will. That's an interesting and surprising twist: of course allowing a woman to make her own decisions is good, and there are plenty of novels in which the parents force on the child an unsuitable marriage; here, they let her make her choice out of pure indifference: she's an orphan in the care of her feckless and foolish uncle, and Eliot makes it clear that he'd just rather not be bothered with her; he likes the Casaubon is wealthy, so he won't have to worry about her finances, or more accurately he won't have to spend any $ on her, and other than that he washes his hands of her. Eliot shrewdly sees some of the contradictions in her society and her point women need the same freedom as men, not more not less, in education, marriage, lineage, property. No father or guardian would allow a son to make such a terrible decision about marriage; the uncle's indifference toward Dorothea is more horrifying than any form of oppression. We all know Dorothea is on her way toward doom; the question is, how will she rectify her fateful decision, if at all?