For all of you who have read Jane Eyre?

Jane left because she followed rules and conventions of her time. First, pragmatically: a woman living with a married man was tainted for life. She would not be accepted anywhere, in any society, however humble. She would be shunned by everybody, servants included, no one would talk to her. She would be completely dependant on the man. If he walked out on her, she would have been left without a penny, and if she had any children, she would have to provide for them on her own - law did not bother with illegitimate children of men. They were not responsible. There were no jobs for women besides badly paid governessing or being a servant, a maid or a cleaner. No respectable family would have hired an unmarried woman who had children. The children of such union would be forever illegitimate, even if the parents married afterwards, and the father would have officially recognized them. Even if some time later the man married the woman, she'd never been accepted to any society. Her children would have had difficulty marrying, in case of sons - holding a profession (a priest, for example). Co-habiting was a social death for women and her future children. Note, too, that even men did not respect and were not expected to respect their mistresses: compare at Fielding when a young nobleman says about a young poor girl who he seduced: "But she is not a whore, and I can't marry a whore, even if she is a whore of my own making."

Plus, simple minded and religious as she was, she could not consider living in sin - see the above - and be a pariah. It was considered a "duty" for women to repel all sexual advances of men. If a woman did not withstand them, she was not only a "bad" woman, she was considered the only one to blame (compare how Keats seduced and eloped with a schoolgirl, 6 years younger than him; the said schoolgirl afterwards was called "an initiator, who seduced a young man with her wiles, and he married her shortly afterwards).

It was right by the standards of the time the book was set.

The marriage couldn't go ahead, you know that much from reading it. He couldn't divorce his mad wife - divorce was considered an abomination back then - and to continue to live with Rochester would have been similarly off-limits, as the fact of the marriage having been called off would have been common knowledge and if she continued living with him it would be plain to all that they were having an affair. Rather than drag Rochester to social ruin, and possibly homelessness and jail, she moved out. She could not have discussed the matter with him first, as he would have only implored her to stay.

I was researching CB in the Nineties. She was a woman ahead of her time in many ways. I'm glad I was not the only answerer of this question.

I think she was right. These days I think that marriage isn't quite as big a deal, but in those days if you were already married and then tried to marry again that was considered appalling. She would have felt humiliated and cheated and quite frankly Mr. Rochester was a prat to have even considered marriage. Despite the fact that he was married to a loon. She would have flet so ashamed to have stayed with him and also everyone would have shunned her in public.

I adore this book so much. It's nice to find a question on it :D

She left because it was the absolute right thing for her to do in those times and in that situation. She would have lost all respect in the eyes of others in her society if she had stayed. She had to leave in her own best interests.

It is more than half a lifetime since I read Jane Eyre, and I really cannot remember specific details of the novel other than very generally. However, these sites should help you with your work with it.

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/j...

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/janeeyre/

http://www.studyguide.org/jane_eyre.htm

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Jane-E...

http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles/jane...

http://www.online-literature.com/brontec/janeeyre/