Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

There is a very good analysis of the character of Sue Bridehead in  Jude the Obscure in How to Read Literature by Terry Eagleton pp71-74.

He starts by stating how he once branded her as "a perverse hussy" and goes on to see her as a woman of her time:

 "her advanced sexual views are inevitably somewhat theoretical. Women's emancipation is still at an early stage [has hardly begun]. So her beliefs can easily succumb to social pressures."