I think a person may rank the woman most to blame along this line of thinking.
I live in Chicago, and not to far from my home is Humboldt Park. This is not a good neighborhood. Suppose I took $500.00 out of the bank and walked around the park and had my money in my hand exposed for the world to see.
And then someone comes up and hits me and takes the money. Who’s at fault? In this case many would say me. I made no attempt to conceal the money. I actively was walking around in a place that was known to me to be dangerous and a place where a mugging might occur. People would say, “You got mugged because of your own foolish behaviour, and you should’ve known better.”
In the story in the PDF, this woman acts foolishly. She does dishonest things. She is foolish as she wasn’t prepared for her round trip fare. She then begs money of Man #2 whom she had a quarrel with before, thus not learning anything from her mistake of quarrelling, as she repeats it with man #1.
She then enters an area where it’s KNOWN to be dangerous. Still she values her marriage more than the, risk to her own life.
Now you may not agree with how some people could say the woman is at fault but some will.
Let’s change this a bit.
Suppose instead of a highway man stabbing herself, the woman remembers a bridge that is old and deteriorating. This bridge is fenced off and maked “danger do not use - unsafe” And she chooses to climb over the fence and ignore the sign and use the bridge hoping she can make it across." But it breaks and she falls into the river.
Who’s to blame then?
Now those situations are similar but not analogous, because in the original example, the woman is acting passively and in my example she is acting actively. But in both cases she ignores clear and present dangers, known to her, to take a risk.
How many times do we hear of a guy who smokes like a chimney then gets lung cancer. Or someone who doesn’t use a condom and get’s pregnant or HIV?
We feel sorry for the person and backhandedly dismiss it by adding “Well he should’ve known.”
And that is the real key to this question. When a person takes a risk and that risk cost him, whether it’s your life, health or financial, people look at the RISK and the factors surround it. If the person acted without thinking or it wasn’t a well thought out plan, they blame the victim.