Bovary the victim - Charles, that is: What is he thinking?

Have posted in past days about some of Flaubert's silences in Madame Bovary - in particular the famous carriage ride through Rouen in which we are among the populace of the city, puzzled by this carriage riding back and forth across the city, as Leon at last seduced Emma, a seduction scene we witness by indirection only, and the scene behind the window during which Roualt convinces his daughter, Emma, to marry Charles - we see this again from the outside, this time from Charles's POV, and we will never know exactly what kind of discussion, argument, or persuasion took place during those 20 minutes. Another example of Flaubert's silences - maybe eve more significant - is What was Charles thinking? Although Emma is the title character, let's not forget that the novel begins (and ends) with Charles, and that we get a fairly broad span of his life before Flaubert introduces her. But of course she eclipses him, and the story becomes her romance and her tragedy. He gets pushed to the side - an obstacle, a hindrance, a dead weight holding down her lofty desires. But what is he thinking throughout this? Surely in the small town they live in everyone would have noticed her constantly sneaking off to meet Rodolphe; surely Charles would have suspected something - with her constant visits to the back gate of the garden, her expenditures - and wouldn't she literally have reeked of sex and passion? And then - when she begins her affair with Leon - doesn't he suspect her of lying to him, when, just as one example, he meets her supposed piano teacher and she's never heard of Emma? Of course he must suspect, but why does he put up with her behavior? Is he so in love with her, or is he one of the biggest wimps and victims in all of literature? From his first appearance, we see him as a clumsy nebish and a bit of an outcast; in marrying Emma, he clearly is punching above his weight, and he will do anything to hold on to her - he's that much in love with her, or else, he has that low a self-image that he will let her walk all over him, and out on him. Of course he is as much a prisoner of his time, class, and gender as she is - bound by convention to stay with her, bound by his faith to stay married to her. He's the one, though, who should break free; today, he would be in counseling - then, his only possible course was to stick it out and hope to win her love back, or else bask in glory and in her memory once she's gone.