How does "Roman Fever" by E.Wharton portray marriages based not on love, respect or commitment, but one based on status and wealth?Edith Wharton's...

In one of her greater works of fiction, Edith Wharton
portrays the class from which she herself came, the social elite of New York, to whom
name and social status are all-important. Relationships are built upon this
upper-class structure as evinced in "Roman Fever."  Mrs. Ansley and Mrs. Slade have been
lifelong friends only because they have been put together by circumstance:  They met
each other as young ladies while vacationing with their families in Rome; then, they
have lived in New York as neighbors across the street from each other.  Now, in
Wharton's narrative, they find themselves again in Rome together with their
daughters.

And, in this Roman setting, old memories are
stirred as the two woman watch as their daughters depart in the company of two young
men.  With the "spring effulgence of the Roman skies," a rebirth of old feelings surge
in Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, who remarks that "...we didn't know much...about each
other" when they were young under the Roman moon so long ago. With irony, Wharton writes
of the two old friends,

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Like many intimate friends, the two ladies had
never before had occasion to be silent together, and Mrs. Ansley was slightly
embarrassed by what seemed, after so many years, a new stage in their intimacy, and one
with which she did not yet know how to
deal.

At this point, their
intimacy of friendship is much like the false intimacies of their marriages.  For, it is
later revealed that all the years of her marriage, Mrs. Slade has never known that her
husband has had a love affair with Mrs. Ansley, and Mrs. Ansley's husband has never
known that Barbara is not really his daughter.  Engaged to Alida Slade at the
time, Delphin Slade remains true to his social commitments and marries her and lives his
life as a corporate lawyer across the street from his former lover.  Likewise, Grace
Ansley maintains decorum and never mentions anything to him or to Mrs. Slade; she has
quickly married after rising from her sickbed back in New York after she has recovered
from Roman fever, thereby deluding Mr. Ansley with what he thinks is her pregnancy after
their marriage.

All of these intimate secrets are kept for
years and years as the Slades and Ansleys have maintained their positions in New York
high society.  Indeed, their marriages are ones of social position and obligation, much
more than love and respect.  Even in the revealing conversation between Mrs. Ansley and
Mrs. Slade there is a power structure, albeit one that changes.