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Unit 22: Harriet Martineau-On Marriage...

inner nature, and in the fulfilment of social responsibilities. The influence of Compte may also Notes
have been felt in the case of both Lewes and Marian Evans; they saw in the marriage form a
fulfilment of human, not of legal, requirements.
While there is no doubt they would both gladly have accepted the legal form had that been
possible, yet they were sufficiently out of sympathy with the conventionalities of society to cause
them to disregard that form when it could not be complied with. They regarded themselves,
however, as married, and bound by all the ties and requirements which marriage imposes. They
proclaimed themselves to their friends as husband and wife, and they were so accepted by those
who knew them. In her letters to literary correspondents she always mentioned Lewes as “my
husband.” The laws of most civilized nations recognize these very conditions, and regard the
acceptance of the marriage relation before the world as a sufficient form.
Those who have written of this marriage, bear testimony to its devotion and beauty. The author of
the account of her life and writings in the Westminster Review, an early and intimate friend, says
the “union was from the first regarded by themselves as a true marriage, as an alliance of a sacred
kind, having a binding and permanent character. When the fact of the union was first made
known to a few intimate friends, it was accompanied with the assurance that its permanence was
already irrevocably decreed. The marriage of true hearts for a quarter of a century has demonstrated
the sincerity of the intention. ‘The social sanction,’ said Mr. Lewes once in our hearing, ‘is always
desirable.’ There are cases in which it is not always to be had. Such a ratification of the sacrament
of affection was regarded as a sufficient warrant, under the circumstances of the case, for entrance
on the most sacred engagement of life. There was with her no misgiving, no hesitation, no looking
back, no regret; but always the unostentatious assertion of quiet, matronly dignity, the most
queenly expression and unconscious affirmation of the ‘divine right’ of the wedded wife. We have
heard her own oral testimony to the enduring happiness of this union, and can, as privileged
witnesses, corroborate it. As a necessary element in this happiness she practically included the
enjoyment inseparable from the spontaneous reciprocation of home affection, meeting with an
almost maternal love the filial devotion of Mr. Lewes’s sons, proffering all tender service in
illness, giving and receiving all friendly confidence in her own hour of sorrowful bereavement,
and crowning with a final act of generous love and forethought the acceptance of parental
responsibilities in the affectionate distribution of property, the visible result of years of the
intellectual toil whose invisible issues are endless.”
Their marriage helped both to a more perfect work and to a truer life. She gave poise and purpose
to the “versatile, high-strung, somewhat wayward nature” of her husband, and she “restrained,
raised, ennobled, and purified” his life and thought. He stimulated and directed her genius life
into its true channel, cared for her business interests with untiring faithfulness, made it possible
for her to pursue her work without burdens and distractions, and gave her the inspiration of a
noble affection and a cheerful home. Miss Edith Simcox speaks of “the perfect union between
these two,” which, she says, “lent half its charm to all the worship paid at the shrine of George
Eliot.” She herself, Miss Simcox proceeds to say, “has spoken somewhere of the element of almost
natural tenderness in a man’s protecting love: this patient, unwearying care for which no trifles
are too small, watched over her own life; he stood between her and the world, her relieved her
from all those minor cares which chafe and fret the artist’s soul; he wrote her letters; in a word, he
so smoothed the course of her outer life as to leave all her powers free to do what she alone could
do for the world and for the many who looked to her for help and guidance. No doubt this
devotion brought its own reward; but we are exacting for our idols and do not care to have even
a generous error to condone, and therefore we are glad to know that, great as his reward was, it
was no greater than was merited by the most perfect love that ever crowned a woman’s life.”
Mr. Kegan Paul also writes of the mutual helpfulness and harmony of purpose which grew out of
this marriage. “Mr. Lewes’s character attained a stability and pose in which it had been somewhat

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