I admit I found this movie dull and probably wasn't paying attention at the time, but I thought the woman Victor shot was his fiancee. Was it his fiancee venturing into his lab with the monster peering in at her through the skylight? Then at the end I see Paul with her. So who did Victor shoot?
shareHe shot his cousin Elizabeth.
This made little sense to me, particularly as there was no follow-up other than that she and Paul left to presumably live happily ever after - with Victor's inherited wealth.
Her weird chemistry with Victor made no sense either. A cousin is just going to move in with another? Presumably Victor would have kept sending Elizabeth the monthly stipend that he'd sent his aunt, Elizabeth's mother. I guess it was just a way to get some eye candy into the film.
Well, two things. At the very beginning of the film, when Victor was still a pre-teen, his aunt (Elizabeth's mother) was already hinting that her daughter would make a good match for him someday. So they laid groundwork there for a future marriage.
Second, on the surface that might sound weird, but cousins marrying each other was much more common in the past than it is today. For example Queen Victoria married her first cousin (Prince Albert) in 1840. It was definitely more of a social norm. Now, why did Victor want to get married in the first place, that I don't know. He certainly didn't take any interest in her once they did marry. And he already had a lover on the side so it's not like he was lonely. They did a poor job establishing why he bothered marrying anyone. Perhaps it was for social reasons but that was never mentioned or explored. Your 'eye candy' explanation is probably as good as any.
Go to Google and do a search and you'll find it's actually legal in the USA for cousins to marry in many states.
I didn't believe it until I looked it up!!