Not every man, but somehow, always a man? One woman was enjoying a night out with her book club, drinking wine and chatting about her favorite reads. It should’ve been a fun, relaxing evening with fellow book lovers. That is, until her husband showed up and decided to make a spectacle of himself.
He grabbed her book and started reading her privately highlighted passages out loud for everyone to hear. Despite her repeatedly asking him to stop, he kept going, insisting it was just a joke. Eventually, one Reddit user had seen enough and decided to take matters into his own hands. Read the full story below.
One woman’s night at book club took a nasty turn when her husband decided to embarrass her in front of everyone
Seeing how uncomfortable she was, another man stepped in
Clearly, men trying to control what women read is nothing new, though you’d hope we’d have moved past that by now
For plenty of book lovers, the best part of reading is getting lost in a whole other world. And to make the experience a little more special, they have their own ways of remembering the best bits.
Some dog-ear their favorite pages, while others highlight sentences they want to come back to. And if the passages you love happen to be a little spicy? Well, that’s your business. Or at least, it should be.
Women certainly enjoy their books. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 78% of American women had read at least part of a book in the previous year, compared with 71% of men. Women were also twice as likely to have participated in a book club, at 10% versus 5%.
Of course, women haven’t always had the same freedom to enjoy literature. In 18th- and early 19th-century England, girls’ education was often geared toward preparing them for marriage.
According to the British Library, even women from wealthy families had limited access to formal schooling. Jane Austen’s brothers could attend Oxford University, while she and her sister had no such opportunity.
Then there was the question of what women should actually read. Novels, especially romantic or sensational ones, attracted plenty of criticism.
As Smithsonian Magazine explains, some 18th-century commentators considered novel-reading a dangerous pastime for young women. They thought that these stories would fill women’s heads with unrealistic ideas about love and encourage them to question society’s expectations of how they should behave.
Thankfully, women kept reading anyway. Authors such as Sarah Fielding wrote books aimed at educating girls, while Austen herself devoured everything from respected classics to the wildly dramatic fiction of her day.
Fast-forward a couple of centuries, and women in many parts of the world can fill their shelves with whatever catches their eye. Nobody needs to approve their next romance novel.
Apparently, this woman’s husband missed that memo. He thought it would be hilarious to embarrass his wife in front of her entire book club by reading her highlighted passages out loud. And despite her repeatedly asking him to stop, he kept going.
When he finally left, he couldn’t resist one last jab, mocking her choice of books and telling her to hurry up because he’d be waiting in the parking lot.
What makes this particularly concerning is that publicly humiliating your partner can be a sign of a potentially dangerous relationship. Of course, one Reddit post doesn’t tell us everything about their marriage. But who’s to say this is the only time he’s treated his wife this way?
Thankfully, another man stepped in and took the book away from the woman’s husband. Now, though, he’s wondering if he went too far. What do you think? Was he right to intervene, or should he have let the couple sort things out themselves?
Many readers thought the man did the right thing by intervening
Others shared similar experiences of their own
Some, however, felt the man had overstepped
