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Unit 21: Harriet Martineau-On Marriage: Introduction and Detailed Study

The following year, her autobiography was published. It was rare for a woman to publish such a Notes
work, let alone one secular in nature. Her book was regarded as dispassionate, ‘philosophic to the
core’ in its perceived masculinity, and a work of necessitarianism. She deeply explored childhood
experiences and memories, expressing feelings of having been deprived of her mother’s affection,
as well as strong devotion to her brother James Martineau, a theologian.

21.4 Text—On Marriage

The Marriage compact is the most important feature of the domestic state on which the observer
can fix his attention. If he be a thinker, he will not be surprised at finding much imperfection in the
marriage state wherever he goes. By no arrangements yet attempted have purity of morals,
constancy of affection, and domestic peace been secured to any extensive degree in society. Almost
every variety of method is still in use, in one part of the world or another. The primitive custom
of brothers marrying sisters still subsists in some Eastern regions. Polygamy is very common
there, as every one knows. In countries which are too far advanced for this, every restraint of law,
all sanction of opinion, has been tried to render that natural method,—the restriction of one
husband to one wife,—successful, and therefore universal and permanent. Law and opinion have,
however, never availed to anything like complete success. Even in thriving young countries,
where no considerations of want, and few of ambition, can interfere with domestic peace,—where
the numbers are equal, where love has the promise of a free and even course, and where religious
sentiment is directed full upon the sanctity of the marriage state,—it is found to be far from pure.
In almost all countries, the corruption of society in this department is so deep and wide-spreading,
as to vitiate both moral sentiment and practice in an almost hopeless degree. It neutralizes almost
all attempts to ameliorate and elevate the condition of the race.—There must be something fearfully
wrong where the general result is so unfortunate as this. As in most other cases of social suffering,
the wrong will be found to lie less in the methods ordained and put in practice, than in the
prevalent sentiment of society, out of which all methods arise.
It is necessary to make mention (however briefly) of the kinds of false sentiment from which the
evil of conjugal unhappiness appears to spring.—The sentiment by which courage is made the
chief ground of honour in men, and chastity in women, coupled with the inferiority in which
women have ever been sunk, was sure to induce profligacy. As long as men were brave nothing
more was required to make them honourable in the eyes of society: while the inferior condition of
women has ever exposed those of them who were not protected by birth and wealth to the
profligacy of men.
Marriage exists everywhere, to be studied by the moral observer. He must watch the character of
courtships wherever he goes;—whether the young lady is negotiated for and promised by her
guardians, without having seen her intended; like the poor girl who, when she asked her mother
to point out her future husband from among a number of gentlemen, was silenced with the
rebuke, “What is that to you?”—or whether they are left free to exchange their faith “by flowing
stream, through wood, or craggy wild,” as in the United States;—or whether there is a medium
between these two extremes, as in England. He must observe how fate is defied by lovers in
various countries…Scotch lovers agree to come together after so many years spent in providing
the “plenishing.” Irish lovers conclude the business, in case of difficulty, by appearing before the
priest the next morning. There is recourse to a balcony and rope-ladder in one country; a steam-
boat and back-settlement in another; trust and patience in a third; and intermediate flirtations, to
pass the time, in a fourth. He must note the degree of worldly ambition which attends marriages,
and which may therefore be supposed to stimulate them, how much space the house with two
rooms in humble life, and the country-seat and carriages in higher life, occupy in the mind of
bride or bridegroom.—He must observe whether conjugal infidelity excites horror and rage, or
whether it is so much a matter of course as that no jealousy interferes to mar the arrangements of

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