Outlander Book Club: A Breath of Snow and Ashes Chapter 47 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

The chapter starts with Claire looking for bees to get them back to their hive when she comes across Tom beating Malva. She’s shocked by this but doesn’t get involved. Instead, she heads to Jamie to talk about it.

Jamie reminds her of the time period. Children and wives are beaten. He even points out that some women enjoy it, including his sister Jenny. Jamie describes an event he overheard, and shares that Grannie McNab talked about how Ian felt like less of a man now and then because of his lost leg.

Claire is shocked by this. She remembers the beating Jamie once gave her and it still angered her. Men who beat their wives in their time use their fists mostly and they are deemed criminals. Jamie is shocked that men don’t give their wives beatings for good reasons, but he is disgusted at men using their fists. That’s not the way it’s done here. Even those men in his time period are considered scum.

However, he reminds Claire that women are property by telling her that he owns her. It’s not something Claire likes to hear. Claire also doesn’t like hearing that Jamie wouldn’t beat Laoghaire. As much as she annoyed him, he didn’t ever consider it. It’s not because he had more respect for Laoghaire than Claire but because of the opposite.

Claire does point out at the very end of the chapter that she would tell Jamie to do something and he’d do it. She also owns him, and he can’t argue with that.