Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins (e book reader pc .txt) 📕
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Man and Wife is the ninth novel by Wilkie Collins, and was published in serial form in 1870. Like many of his other novels it has a complex plot and tackles social issues, in this case the then-lax state of the marriage laws, particularly in Scotland and Ireland. As always, Collins deals carefully but frankly with human personal behavior. To avoid offending Victorian morals too greatly, much is implied rather than stated outright. Nevertheless, even dealing with such matters at all led to his novels being derided as “sensation fiction” by his critics. By today’s standards, of course, they wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow.
In Man and Wife, the main character Anne Silvester has fallen pregnant to a muscular and handsome, but boorish man, Geoffrey Delamayn, to whom she is not married. She is working as a governess at a house in Scotland. Anne arranges to meet Delamayn secretly at a garden party and angrily demands that he fulfill his promise to marry her, that very day. He very reluctantly agrees to a secret, private marriage, knowing that a public marriage would badly affect his inheritance prospects. How is the marriage to be arranged quickly but kept quiet? Anne has a plan based on her understanding of the looseness of the marriage laws in Scotland. Naturally, of course, things go badly wrong with this plan and many complexities arise.
Collins is deeply critical of the state of contemporary marriage laws, both in how loosely they were framed, and in how little power over their own lives they gave to women once they were married, even if married to a brutal man. He also uses this novel to denounce the worship of sporting heroes and the obsession with physical prowess rather than mental superiority as a primary indication of male virtue.
Though not as popular as his novels The Woman in White and The Moonstone, Man and Wife received a good critical reception when it was released and was a commercial success.
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- Author: Wilkie Collins
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“Who’s that ‘authority’ you talked of just now?” inquired Geoffrey. “Couldn’t I ask him?”
“You might find him flatly contradicted, if you did ask him by another authority equally learned and equally eminent,” answered Sir Patrick. “I am not joking—I am only stating facts. Have you heard of the Queen’s Commission?”
“No.”
“Then listen to this. In March, ’sixty-five, the Queen appointed a Commission to inquire into the Marriage-Laws of the United Kingdom. The Report of that Commission is published in London; and is accessible to anybody who chooses to pay the price of two or three shillings for it. One of the results of the inquiry was, the discovery that high authorities were of entirely contrary opinions on one of the vital questions of Scottish marriage-law. And the Commissioners, in announcing that fact, add that the question of which opinion is right is still disputed, and has never been made the subject of legal decision. Authorities are everywhere at variance throughout the Report. A haze of doubt and uncertainty hangs in Scotland over the most important contract of civilized life. If no other reason existed for reforming the Scotch marriage-law, there would be reason enough afforded by that one fact. An uncertain marriage-law is a national calamity.”
“You can tell me what you think yourself about my friend’s case—can’t you?” said Geoffrey, still holding obstinately to the end that he had in view.
“Certainly. Now that I have given you due warning of the danger of implicitly relying on any individual opinion, I may give my opinion with a clear conscience. I say that there has not been a positive marriage in this case. There has been evidence in favor of possibly establishing a marriage—nothing more.”
The distinction here was far too fine to be appreciated by Geoffrey’s mind. He frowned heavily, in bewilderment and disgust.
“Not married!” he exclaimed, “when they said they were man and wife, before witnesses?”
“That is a common popular error,” said Sir Patrick. “As I have already told you, witnesses are not legally necessary to make a marriage in Scotland. They are only valuable—as in this case—to help, at some future time, in proving a marriage that is in dispute.”
Geoffrey caught at the last words.
“The landlady and the waiter might make it out to be a marriage, then?” he said.
“Yes. And, remember, if you choose to apply to one of my professional colleagues, he might possibly tell you they were married already. A state of the law which allows the interchange of matrimonial consent to be proved by inference leaves a wide door open to conjecture. Your friend refers to a certain lady, in so many words, as his wife. The lady refers to your friend, in so many words, as her husband. In the rooms which they have taken, as man and wife, they remain, as man and wife, till the next morning. Your friend goes away, without undeceiving anybody. The lady stays at the inn, for some days after, in the character of his wife. And all these circumstances take place in the presence of competent witnesses. Logically—if not legally—there is apparently an inference of the interchange of matrimonial consent here. I stick to my own opinion, nevertheless. Evidence in proof of a marriage (I say)—nothing more.”
While Sir Patrick had been speaking, Geoffrey had been considering with himself. By dint of hard thinking he had found his way to a decisive question on his side.
“Look here!” he said, dropping his heavy hand down on the table. “I want to bring you to book, Sir! Suppose my friend had another lady in his eye?”
“Yes?”
“As things are now—would you advise him to marry her?”
“As things are now—certainly not!”
Geoffrey got briskly on his legs, and closed the interview.
“That will do,” he said, “for him and for me.”
With those words he walked back, without ceremony, into the main thoroughfare of the room.
“I don’t know who your friend is,” thought Sir Patrick, looking after him. “But if your interest in the question of his marriage is an honest and a harmless interest, I know no more of human nature than the babe unborn!”
Immediately on leaving Sir Patrick, Geoffrey was encountered by one of the servants in search of him.
“I beg your pardon, Sir,” began the man. “The groom from the Honorable Mr. Delamayn’s—”
“Yes? The fellow who brought me a note from my brother this morning?”
“He’s expected back, Sir—he’s afraid he mustn’t wait any longer.”
“Come here, and I’ll give you the answer for him.”
He led the way to the writing-table, and referred to Julius’s letter again. He ran his eye carelessly over it, until he reached the final lines: “Come tomorrow, and help us to receive Mrs. Glenarm.” For a while he paused, with his eye fixed on that sentence; and with the happiness of three people—of Anne, who had loved him; of Arnold, who had served him; of Blanche, guiltless of injuring him—resting on the decision that guided his movements for the next day. After what had passed that morning between Arnold and Blanche, if he remained at Lady Lundie’s, he had no alternative but to perform his promise to Anne. If he returned to his brother’s house, he had no alternative but to desert Anne, on the infamous pretext that she was Arnold’s wife.
He suddenly tossed the letter away from him on the table, and snatched a sheet of notepaper out of the writing-case. “Here goes for Mrs. Glenarm!” he said to himself; and wrote back to his brother, in one line: “Dear Julius, Expect me tomorrow. G. D.” The impassible manservant stood by while he wrote, looking at his magnificent breadth of chest, and thinking what a glorious “staying-power” was there for the last terrible mile of the coming race.
“There you are!” he said, and handed his note to the man.
“All right, Geoffrey?” asked a friendly voice behind him.
He turned—and saw Arnold, anxious for news of the consultation with Sir Patrick.
“Yes,” he said. “All right.”1
XXI Done!Arnold
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