Judgment

Judgment.  I'm guilty of it.  I paste my own assumptions, my own prejudices, my own opinions onto what I see in front of me.

I was listening to "Stuff you missed in History Class" today.  It was a story about Elsa Lanchester (Wikipedia article and IMBd article. The introductory material about her parents is what caught my mind.  Her mother and father did not believe in marriage.  Read this quote from this site:

In 1895 Edith Lanchester (1871-1966) of 72 Este Road, Battersea, the well-educated daughter of a prosperous architect, told her family that, owing to the anti-woman marriage laws, she intended to cohabit with James Sullivan. She felt the wife's vow to obey the husband was immoral and did not wish to lose her independence.

Her father had her examined by a doctor, who drew up emergency commitment papers, under the British Lunacy Act of 1890.  Her family (father and brothers) kidnapped her, forced her into a carriage, bound her hand and foot, and took her to a lunatic asylum in Surrey.  Four days later, after James Sullivan pushed for an appeal, she was released.  You can read the press clipping here.

The cause listed on the commitment papers was "overeducation."  Silly, the ideas that some women get once they have started thinking (she says, sarcastically).

Judgment.  Her family thought that if she didn't want to get married, didn't believe in marriage, she must be crazy.

Do we judge people in the light of what we think is the norm?