George Eliot (1819-1880) Part 3: The Brave Couples of Middlemarch

I assumed that because George Eliot lived with a man who was married to another woman, she did not care for marriage herself, so I was surprised to discover that Middlemarch is all about marriage. But, as stated in my previous blog post

George Eliot Part 2: “The Slavery of Being a Girl,” I was mistaken about all that.

Also see Nasty Women Writers post: George Eliot (1819-1880) Part 1: A Giantess of English Literature.

George Eliot did care about marriage —very much so. Her novel Middlemarch delves into the truth of marriage, what happens once the courting, the decision making and  anticipation of the wedding day are set aside and two people begin to share a home and a life. In Middlemarch, we are treated to an almost reality TV-like view of this strange and wildly popular human invention.

If it had been a fluff book that didn’t expose the shadow side of marriage, I probably wouldn’t have cared or noticed the marriage theme since that is what was popularly written about by women writers of that time. But it isn’t. Middlemarch is all about the underbelly of marriage, for all genders.

It is about the compromises we make or do not make in marriage, coming to terms with the true personalities of significant others as they unveil themselves over time, and the challenge to understand ourselves and each other in this new context. It is about the need for openness and conversation in any long-term relationship. Middlemarch is about what happens if this isn’t engaged in. It exposes the cruel reality of living with a spouse who doesn’t really care about you or your dreams.

In the character of Dorothea who opens the book, we find another Eliot female who thinks she can outwit the marriage problem with her choice of husband but she too, like Gwendolen in Daniel Deronda, ends up in a prison of sorts. When I say the marriage problem I mean the fact that all women at that time (1829-1832 England) were expected to marry, expected to like it and expected to submit to their husband’s will.

Dorothea doesn’t assume, as Gwendolen does, that she will rule over her husband, but she does believe that if she chooses the right mate, she will be able to become the woman she wants to. Dorothea is pious. She has a lot of ambition to do good and make positive changes in the world.

For her husband, she chooses Edward Casaubon, a man she feels will enhance her will to do good in the world. He is highly educated and committed, in her 19-year-old estimation, to a noble cause, writing the book, The Key to all Mythologies. He is twenty-seven years older than her; and not a chipper older man at that.

Though her uncle tries in his own way to warn her off of the marriage, she willfully chooses to go forward with it.

“I never loved  any one well enough to put myself in a noose for them. It is a noose, you know. Temper, now. There is temper. And a husband likes to be master.”

“I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of higher duties. I never thought of it as mere personal ease,” said poor Dorothea.”(47).

We can tell from other people’s responses to her decision that it is ghastly. Dorothea, as well as wanting to do good in the world, also has a great intellect and longs to be educated.

“It was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin or Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly…and she had not reached that point of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a wise husband: she wished, poor child, to be wise herself”(76).

The underbelly moves in quickly on their honeymoon in Rome where it becomes apparent Casaubon will not include her in his work, except to have her read to him in the evenings and possibly sometimes, rewrite some non-important papers. He abandons her in Rome, to do his research. She is terribly bored and destabilized, especially when she discovers that his work is going nowhere. He has not, in fact, discovered the key to all mythologies. He is not kind to her.  He soon tires of her and devolves into being cruel.

Dorothea is morally “good” and suffers silently. However, the cousin of Casaubon, Will Ladislaw, who she met first at the property she shall inherit in England, happens to be in Rome at the same time as their honeymoon. Will finds her to be unique, inspiring and delightful and begins to visit, engaging her in conversations she hoped to have with her husband.

Dorothea articulates her beliefs to Ladislaw:

“That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.”

“That is a beautiful mysticism-it is a—“

“Please do not call it by any name,”said Dorothea, putting out her hands entreatingly. “You will say it is Persian, or something else geographical. It is my life. I have found it out, and cannot part with it. I have always been finding out my religion since I was a little girl. I used to pray so much—now I hardly ever pray. I try not to have desires merely for myself, because they may not be good for others, and I have too much already. I only told you, that you might know quite well how my days go at Lowick.”…

“What is your religion?” Said Dorothea. “I mean—not what you know about religion, but the belief that helps you most?”

“To love what is good and beautiful when I see it,” said Will. “But I am a rebel: I don’t feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I don’t like.”

“But if you like what is good, that comes to the same thing,” said Dorothea, smiling”(488).

Will falls in love with Dorothea. This young man lights Dorothea up, awakening feelings until now unknown to her. When Casaubon sees what is going on, he forbids her to see him. He already disapproves of his young cousin and though he has no intention of trying to satisfy Dorothea’s needs or secret desires, his jealousy overtakes him. In a mean-spirited act, he writes this prohibition into his will. He stipulates in his will that if Dorothea ever marries Will Ladislaw, she loses any money or property she stands to inherit from Casaubon.

This is cruel in many ways as we guess that the marriage with Casaubon is never consummated, and he changes his will when he knows he is dying. This reveals that he is willing to deny Dorothea happiness forever.

Even met with a cruel, small-minded and domineering husband in a marriage where she had hoped for so much more, Dorothea remains loyal to Casaubon, avoiding Ladislaw and attempting to aid her husband in his work while looking after his health. But her life has turned dreary and depressing. This depression lifts off the page and comes to land uncomfortably on the reader with Eliot’s skillful descriptions of this imprisoned state Dorothea finds herself in.

“She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus of a ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.. . .

Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she could not have the carriage to go to Celia who had lately had a baby. There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent, and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne a headache”(590).

In the end, however, Dorothea does something truly self-ish. She marries again, this time selfishly, for love, and since it is to Will Ladislaw, throws away her inheritance from Casaubon along with his vengeful curse.

Tertius Lydgate: Passion thwarted

The character of Tertius Lydgate in Middlemarch intrigues me for many reasons. First I was inspired by his ambition and dedication to medicine and new technologies arising at the time. His grand passion to be engaged in these discoveries was exciting and infectious. Sure, we can see his youthful arrogance and know that needs tempering but the fall of Tertius Lydgate in Middlemarch is a tragedy I did not wish to witness.

In the character of Lydgate, Eliot illustrates once again how marriage can get in the way of such passions and ambition. Typically in a novel written by a woman of this time period, we witness this passion thwarted in female characters, but in Middlemarch Eliot chose to reveal it through a male character which impressed me.

After a series of unfortunate events, Lydgate ends up feeling desperate and alone with his marital and financial problems. I appreciate Eliot’s willingness to explore the burden of financial responsibility and what it can do to a man.

Lydgate gets carried away into a marriage before he is ready and against his better judgment by falling in love with Rosamond Vincy. He is simply unable to say no to her especially when she pouts.

Though he comes from some money, he is not a man of means. The uncle who raised him is unhappy with his choice of profession. Because he felt so passionate about science and doctoring, Lydgate decides to make a go of it on his own. He shows up in Middlemarch knowing no one and ready to begin setting up his new practice, an endeavor he is aware will take many years. At those times, being a doctor was not a lucrative profession. Most doctors made their money by selling medicines, a thing that Lydgate finds distasteful and refuses to do, and also wishes to reform. He has new treatments and philosophies that heal many. While many are suspicious of him, he begins to build a good reputation in town.

Rosamond has been to finishing school and has high expectations and needs. She cares a lot about appearances and has not had time to mature out of being a girl who is taken care of by her father. As such she is unable to take any responsibility for her actions. She truly believes herself to be above error and her fragile ego suffers greatly when Lydgate tries to bring things to her directly as his spouse and partner. She doesn’t respect his work, or understand fully what it means to him. She pouts when he is busy.

“You are always at the Hospital, or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor’s quarrel; and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope and phials. Confess you like those things better than me.”

“Haven’t you ambition enough to wish that your husband should be something better than a Middlemarch doctor?” said Lydgate, letting his hands fall on to his wife’s shoulders, and looking at her with affectionate gravity. “I shall make you learn my favorite bit from an old poet—

“Why should our pride make such a stir to be
And be forgot? What good is like to this,
To do worthy the writing, and to write
Worthy the reading and the world’s delight?”

What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing—and to write out myself what I have done”(542).

Tragically, this dream is thwarted by a bad marriage which leads to further poor decisions made out of desperation and dismay.

In the beginning of the marriage, Lydgate cedes to Rosamond’s needs and incurs a lot of debt. Because he does not tell her that he went into debt to set up their home she assumes she can keep up the same standards of entertaining and buying. When he realizes he cannot keep it up and the debts are climbing too high to come back from, he  tries to talk to her about cutting their spending and changing their lifestyle to match their small budget. But Rosamond becomes belligerent, refuses to talk to him about it and goes behind his back to stop the actions he told her he is taking to fix it.

He has agreed to return the furniture that they are leasing and tells her when they will arrive to take it away. He also tells her he has found a new home for them that is cheaper and more in their budget. Though she has no money and is unable to help him with his debts, she goes behind his back to stop both of these actions. These actions were the only things he could do to save himself and her termination of them leaves him in a state of terrible panic. He even turns to gambling but is stopped by his brother-in-law who, though Lydgate has not confided in him, can easily see he is in trouble.

Lydgate underestimated Rosamond’s character and cunning, never imagining the way she would use her charms and persuasions to convince others to do what she commanded over what he had already set in place.

Lydgate

“secretly wondered over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond’s cleverness as precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman”(727).

He soon learns that Rosamond cleverness in not “precisely the receptive kind,” that she won’t simply obey him and also that he cannot tell her his plans lest she block them. He is devastatingly alone with his problems, having no friends or family to consult and now he cannot tell his wife.

The scenes of Lydgate’s turmoil and desperation are heartbreaking.

Rosamond is also convinced Lydgate’s family will gladly give him money—that he is only too stubborn and proud to ask. She writes to his uncle for money without telling him which leaves Lydgate unexpectedly receiving a scorching rebuff from his uncle even though he had no idea Rosamond had sent the letter. Lydgate is stunned by her willfulness and her desire to rebel against him in uninformed and hurtful ways. After he receives the letter from his uncle he says to her:

“It will be impossible to endure life with you, if you will always be acting secretly —acting in opposition to me and hiding your actions.”

He checked his speech and turned his back on her—then wheeled round and walked about, sat down, and got up again restlessly, grasping hard the objects deep down in his pockets. He was afraid of saying something irremediably cruel”(825).

Lydgate does not want to be cruel to Rosamond. He seems to truly love her and pleads  with her for openness and dialogue in their marriage.

“Can you not see, Rosamond,” he began, again, trying to be simply grave and not bitter, “that nothing can be so fatal as a want of openness and confidence between us?”(828).

But she cannot see. She refuses to see. Rosamond finds herself completely disappointed in her marriage. She stubbornly insists they must leave Middlemarch, where his practice is because she is so humiliated by what has befallen her.

“Poor Rosamond for months had begun to associate her husband with feelings of disappointment, and the terribly inflexible relation of marriage had lost its charm of encouraging delightful dreams. It had freed her from the disagreeables of her father’s house, but it had not given her everything that she had wished and hoped. The Lydgate  with whom she had been in love had been a group of airy conditions for her, most of which had disappeared, while their place had been taken by every-day details which must be lived through slowly from hour to hour, not floated through with a rapid selection of favorable aspects”(820).

A marriage can survive such things but only if we are willing to look at ourselves and hold ourselves accountable. Witnessing these events while reading Middlemarch allows the reader a chance to self-reflect on their own behavior in relationships and possibly correct course if they wish to.

“It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love’s bond has turned to this power of galling. In spite of Rosamond’s self-control a tear fell silently and rolled over her lips. She still said nothing; but under that quietude was hidden an intense effect: she was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished she had never seen him”(826).

Left desperate, Lydgate ends up taking a loan from someone he previously never would have, resulting in a major fiasco for him and leading to the ruin of his reputation in Middlemarch. Rosamond and Lydgate are forced to move to London where Lydgate  lives a life much diminished from his previous ambitious dreams and dies young.

Eliot’s ability to lead the reader through these marriages and more in Middlemarch, is a stunning feat of mastery only achieved by the very best of writers, of whom George Eliot is surely one.

George Eliot is a Nasty Woman Writer.

©Theresa C. Dintino 2025

Works cited

Eliot George. Middlemarch. Grapevine, India.