While I have asked the same questions as the above posters, it has to be accepted that each person's human response is not always going to be predictable. (I'm currently taking a class about the unconventional ways humans behave in terms of information seeking, ergo the psycho-analysis).
The following married women in these classes are easiest to understand from some basic facts known about them.
Ida Strauss of course and in Second Class
Lillian Carter - devoted wife of a clergyman
Elizabeth Chapman - newly married to her childhood sweetheart.
Ellen Howard - similar to Ida Strauss, in her sixties and no doubt married for many years to her husband.
Anna Lahtinen - though young, similar circumstances to Mrs. Carter. And there is the account of her actually getting in a boat which apparantly helped her decide she would rather die with her husband than live without him. So she jumped back on the ship again.
Dorothy Turpin - she and her husband were childless. Though it is unknown, if she was unable to have children she could easily have decided to go down with her husband.
Also, the wealth of information we have on Annie Funk gives a clear picture on her very giving nature as evidenced by her work with the children in India. Whether the story of her giving up her seat to a mother whose child was already aboard is true or not, she would probably give deference to passengers in steerage who she would percieve as being in most need of rescue.
Though she had the pull of small children at home, Irene Corbett sounds like she had a similar mindset and through her religious convictions may also have felt called to make room for those less fortunate passengers.
The following women have more question marks to their actions.
Ms. Yrois was attached to the married William Harbeck. If this were her first trip aboard and she spoke only French she may have felt safer sticking with her lover.
The bits of information known about Mrs. Corey and Karnes give only tantalyzing clues to their circumstances. There is a string in the Biographical - Second Class section about the former being in an advanced pregnancy and even if she had not gone into premature labor, getting aboard a lifeboat may have been too daunting that both women opted to hope for the best, not realizing the danger until too late. Compared to steerage, the impact was not as jarring in the upper classes, so someone like the 7 months pregnant Marie Backstrom who in steerage would have been more aware of the danger, was motivated enough to climb over the railing into boat D though she left behind a husband and two brothers.
Also, I have always been intrigued by the possibility that word was sent to Mrs. Karnes on board ship that her husband had died back in India. That news would certainly not have left her with a willingness to save herself.
Next, we have Mary Mack. Twice widowed, she has been put forward as one of the most likely candidates for the woman who raised a fuss at Boat 9 and then ran off. This could have been a panic reaction and she convinced herself she was safer on the ship.
Finally, the most mysterious of the lot is Marta Hiltunen. From the bit posted about her, I have come up with a scenario similar to that of 3rd Class victim Elin Ester Braf. In Judith Gellar's account of the Johnson family, Mrs. Johnson and infant daughter were aboard boat 15 while Elin was still holding Harold Johnson. She had just watched her friend make a scary, difficult fall into a crewman's arms to get in and paniced to the point that the boy had to be yanked out of her grasp and she left behind. I wonder if after seeing Mrs. Hamalanen and baby maneuver through the window into boat 4, Marta like Elin Braf, was too scared to attempt getting into the lifeboat.
This of course brings us back to Edith Evans in 1st Class, who in some accounts was too intimidated to try scaling the railing into D while Marie Backstrom overcame her fear, physical condition and grief over the men to save herself.
The complexity of each person's life experience, with signficant and mundane influences definitely have direct effects on how each will respond in this extraordinary situation.
