Marriage in "Middlemarch"

Yesterday I wrote about how George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” contains all the world in one town, in one novel. Today I write about marriage as portrayed in “Middlemarch.” Eliot shows deep insight into marriage. She herself had a long (about 25 years) marriage-like relationship with George Henry Lewes; they could not marry because he was already married, although separated from his wife. After Lewes' death, Eliot entered a marriage that lasted only a few months before her own death. Whether her knowledge of marriage comes from her own relationships or from her perceptive close observations of those around her, or -- probably -- both, she seems to understand it deeply. There are three main couples in “Middlemarch.” The two main protagonists, Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, are each gifted and idealistic and want to use their lives to do something meaningful, something that will make a contribution. Because it was hard in those days (the early 19th century) for even educated women to have careers on their own, she marries an older man, Casaubon, who has been working on a comprehensive philosophical book for many years; she thinks she can make her contribution through helping him with the book. She soon finds that his book is already outdated and will never be finished, and despite her innate goodness and her best efforts, their marriage becomes difficult and fraught with tension and jealousy. Lydgate, a doctor and researcher newly arrived in Middlemarch, has great hopes for his progressive ideas about medicine, and for his making lifesaving scientific discoveries. He allows himself to be drawn into a flirtation with a very pretty young woman, Rosamond, and before he knows it, he appears to be committed to marrying her. (An old, old story, isn't it?) He soon finds that she is both shallow and stubborn, doesn’t understand or care about his work, and will destroy his dreams with her ignorance and too-lavish spending. Worse, he ends by compromising his own ideals in order to pay his debts. In other words, both of these highly intelligent, well-educated, idealistic young people -- Dorothea and Lydgate -- with the best of intentions somehow find themselves in terrible marriages, marriages that thwart their best selves and their dreams. The third couple is even younger: Fred Vincy and Mary Garth. Fred has a good heart but is irresponsible, can’t stick with his education or decide on a career, and gets in debt that he can't repay, to the detriment of those he has borrowed from. Yet he has always loved his childhood playmate, Mary, who is plain looking and has little money but is good, clever, funny, and kind. She is his muse, his guiding light. She loves him too but won’t marry him until -- for his own sake -- he gets his life in order and proves himself worthy. This young couple, the one that seems to have the least chance of success, is actually the real success story of the novel, as Fred (with a little help from friends) finally gets his life in order, and things finally work out for the couple. What is most interesting about all this, to me, is Eliot’s portrayals of the emotional connections and disconnections in marriage, and the ways that couples interact with each other in everyday life. Casaubon’s stiffness and sensitivity about his work, and his jealousy of his dashing young relative Will Ladislaw, weigh Dorothea down and make her feel caught in a sticky web; she can’t find a way for them to be comfortable and happy together. Lydgate too finds that despite his efforts, his marriage seems to be inexorably worsening. Both Dorothea and Lydgate have to choose their words carefully and tiptoe through conversations with their spouses. Both of them find that they are helpless against losing their dreams of making contributions to bettering the world. I don’t mean to imply that Eliot’s portrayals represent all marriages, but that she knows how blind and almost willfully ignorant people can be in choosing their spouses, and she understands how difficult and messy marriage can be, even in ideal circumstances. She knows how easy it is for things to go wrong in marriages, despite good intentions. She does show us several at least reasonably happy marriages, though, including that of Mary Garth’s parents, who are exceptionally kind, good, and reasonable people, and obviously dearly love each other. I remain impressed by Eliot’s skill in writing about this wide variety of marriages, successful and unsuccessful, and about the threads that connect them all, as almost no marriage is all good or all bad.