Women of the 19th-century America were very much under patriarchy control. They were under control of their father, brother, husband, or other male relative, for most or all of their lives. Edna Pontellier learned this first hand first from her father, then her husband then from her lovers.
             The first hint you get of Edna's father controlling her is in her statement, "and I was running away from prayers, ...read in a spirit of gloom by my father that chills me yet to think of." She daydreamed a lot of a knight in shining armor taking her away from her father and life, as she knew it. Edna was very tired of her father's control, that when Leonce Pontellier came around and fell in love with her she married him. Edna's father disliked Leonce very much, "Add to this violent opposition of her father and her sister Margaret to her marriage with a Catholic, and we need seek no further for the motives which led her to accept Monsieur Pontellier..." Thus Edna married Leonce, because her father did not like him and to get out from under his control.
             Once She was married to Leonce things did change, a different type of control. Leonce expected her to be a completely submissive wife and do as she was told. Leonce tries to force his control over her while sitting on the front porch of the villa. In an angry outburst, he commands: "This is more than folly... I can't permit you to stay out there all night. You must come in the house instantly"; "she would have gone in at his request. She would, through habit, have yielded to his desire; not with any sense of submission or obedience to his compelling wishes, but unthinkingly, as we walk, move, sit, stand, go through the daily treadmill of the life which has been portioned out to us." She was use to this control so should would normally do as she was told without even thinking twice about it.
             With Robert Lebrun the control is a little hard to see. But the story s
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