Outlander Season 3: Geneva’s actions are understandable but not defendable

In Outlander Season 3, Episode 4, we met Geneva. There’s a debate over whether her actions were understandable, but there’s no way they were defendable.

There are many topics that become a debate among Outlander fans. We all have expectations of people, opinions on actions, and thoughts on how we think we would act in the same position. For #ThrowbackThursday today, I want to look at a Season 3 storyline. It’s all about Geneva.

We were introduced to Geneva Dunsany in Outlander Season 3, Episode 4. The elder daughter of the Dunsany family, Geneva was married off to a man old enough to be her grandfather. This isn’t all that surprising considering the time period. It was something brought up in Season 2 when Mary Hawkins was initially meant to marry a much older man.

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Geneva, played by the excellent Hannah James, understandably didn’t want to marry this man. She didn’t want to lose her virginity to a man she didn’t even like, let alone love. She wanted someone who would be kind to her, something that almost all women would have wanted (and still want).

Turning to Jamie for this wasn’t all that surprising. He’s good looking and a good worker. He had always been respectful to the Dunsany family and Geneva had taken a liking to him. Wanting to have Jamie as her first was an understandable reaction.

But that certainly doesn’t make her actions defendable. At no point should she have blackmailed Jamie into having sex with her. It wasn’t rape in the eyes of the law (had Jamie blackmailed Geneva, yes, but male rape didn’t exist at the time and there are other factors), but it was sexual assault and coercion.

Granted, at the time, there probably wasn’t much of a law around it. The idea of a woman coercing a man into sex probably wasn’t something the men of the time even thought possible. We can’t put today’s standards and laws onto the time of the 18th century. Things don’t work that way.

Outlander — Courtesy of STARZ — Acquired via STARZ Media Center

However, that doesn’t make her actions morally right. They certainly weren’t. Had she just been kind to Jamie from the beginning and talked about her wishes and requests over a few weeks or even months (there would have been some time) then maybe Jamie would have offered what she needed at the time. Apart from the class differences, there wouldn’t have been anything morally wrong with her making a request, the two talking about it, and Jamie agreeing to it without coercion.

Instead, Geneva’s actions were inexcusable. While I understand why she did it (and because of that I don’t hate her too much), I can’t defend what she did. However, she didn’t deserve to die horribly in childbirth because of it!

What did you think about Outlander Season 3, Episode 4? Did you understand but not defend Geneva’s actions? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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