McNaught wrote a book in which rape and spousal abuse is clearly considered to be okay if the hero is rich enough and claims to love the heroine enough.
Well... she does portray the heroes as a hard-bitten, rough, dominating, cynical people and the heroines totally in love to overlook these flaws and easily forgive their men.
But I really love the angst in her stories. She's good in characterizing the aristocrats of the past.
Most aristocrats in the past have been known to treat their women cruelly causing a huge scandal. Pity, the women had to suffer without opening their mouths and divorce was not a solution!
The differences between rape, sex, consensual sex, lovemaking and exercise-of-husbandly-rights have been brought to spotlight only recently. They were probably considered to be the same and done for the same reason in the yester-years - for begetting the heir!
