Middlemarch: Marriage in the Early Nineteenth Century

Paper Summary:

This paper examines the following marriages in George Elliot's "Middlemarch": Dorothea to Casaubon, Rosamond to Lydgate, Celia to Sir James Chettam and Frank to Mary. It compares and contrasts these relationships with typical unions of the era. It provides a view of conventional social expectations of marriage in the early nineteenth century.

From the Paper:

" "Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed." (Wilde 436). Marriage, or a partnership between a husband and a wife, is in the present day often a union entered into by two adults on the basis of attraction, compatibility, and love. In the nineteenth century marriage was not the same as it is today. Women were expected to take the role of an inferior to their husbands, and pass from dependence on their parents into submission to their spouse (Petrie 185). Marriage was often not a choice for women of that era. Most schools had not begun accepting females, and employment for single women was limited and perceived as disgraceful (Knickerbocker 174). Present day marriages are based on the union of social equals, with a greater emphasis on love, affection and individuality, a tradition that began in Europe during the time when Eliot wrote the novel (Goody 102). The relationships between Dorothea and Casaubon, Rosamond and Lydgate, Celia and Sir Chettam, and Frank and Mary, are representative of that century's ideals; woman's inferiority, accomplishments, and marriage within the neighborhood (Thompson 111). The marriages in George Eliot's Middlemarch are characteristic of the different pairings that were typical in the early nineteenth century."

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