What is the meaning of the following sentence in simple English please?

Question

Context:
When he'd gone, she brought us to the village and waited. She waited for thirty years. I don't think she ever knew what had made him desert her, though the reasons seemed clear enough. She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red. She lived by the easy {{laws of the hedgerow}}, loved the world, and made no plans, had a quick holy eye for natural wonders and couldn't have kept a neat house for her life.
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What does the sentence "She lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow" mean in simple English please

Answer 1

I've never heard the expression before (I'm English and in my 60s) - is the quotation from Thomas Hardy? However, as I read the very helpful full quote you give, I read it to be just a summation of what has been said before - from the sentence commencing 'she was muddled' - and what follows in the sentence which includes the phrase. We do have a common expression 'you look as if you've been dragged through a hedge(row) backwards' which means you look extremely dishevelled and untidy. Further, in effect, I interpret the phrase to mean she lived by no law, as the hedgerow has none.

Answer 2

I have a slightly different take from the first answerer. Hedgerows often develop their own little ecosystems - they house birds, bugs, small mammals, etc. She is described in very animalistic terms, as wild and untamed. So I think living by the easy laws of the hedgerow means that she was living by the laws of the natural world - the "wild" world - as opposed to the laws of formal society.

Answer 3

In this context, I'd say "she lived by the easy laws of the hedgerow" means she was a carefree country girl that liked to live a simple life. Hedgerow makes me think of a field of some type, and when it says earlier in the paragraph she was "too remote from his tidy laws", it makes me think she is more a fan of nature than luxury.

Answer 4

it means that she would follow the law until pushed to the limit which would cause her to put the law into her own hands. A country girl would do what she had to to protect her family and herself therefore living on the hedgerow of the law.