The serialization of Man and Wife began in 1870. In setting out to attack the institution of marriage, 'a lifelong commitment enforced by religion, law and social convention', Collins was taking his place in literary history between Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy.
Marriage in Bleak House and Jude the Obscure
Charles Dickens launched his attack on marriage as a subplot in Bleak House (1852-53). Collins took the subject and expanded on it greatly, making it the principal theme of Man and Wife. A generation later, Thomas Hardy would write the ultimate nineteenth century anti-marriage polemic, Jude the Obscure.
Marriage Laws in Victorian Britain
Man and Wife, is less well-known than Collins' classic novels, The Woman in White or The Moonstone, but has much to offer. It is, in the best Collinsian tradition, a great page-turner that adheres to Charles Reade's adage, 'make 'em cry, make 'em laugh, make 'em wait'. However, for the scholar of Victorian Studies or the reader with an interest in the mechanics of marriage laws in Victorian Britain, Man and Wife, is an informative, well-researched novel.
Irregular Marriages in Scotland
What makes Man and Wife interesting from the historian's point of view is Collins' expose of the English, Scottish and Irish marriage laws which, at the time of writing, Collins believed to be in a state of deplorable confusion. The plot hinges on the supposed 'marriage' of Anne Silvester and Arnold Brinkworth after the latter arrives at an inn where Miss Silvester is staying. Fate intervenes to make it necessary that Arnold, who is engaged to Miss Silvester's best friend, stay the night at the inn. Both Arnold and Miss Silvester are completely innocent of any deception but to their surprise and horror, they have been 'married' in the eyes of Scottish Law.
At first glance the plot, which turns on the supposed 'accidental marriage' , may appear preposterous. The reader may feel they are being asked to suspend their disbelief just a little too far: how could a man and a woman be married without ever having spoken vows? The Appendix, provided by Collins to prove the veracity of his story, reveals how the story of Arnold and Miss Silvester is grounded in truth.
If the reader is left in any doubt as to the accuracy of the foundation of the seemingly preposterous plot, Collins himself refers to 'The Report of the Royal Commissioners on the Laws of Marriage', published by the Queen's Printers for Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1868.
Marital Rape Laws
It is not just the notion of the Irregular Marriage that Collins exposes. When the unfortunate Anne Silvester finally marries Geoffrey Delamayn, she also falls foul of 'the hard marriage laws of this country', in this case, England. Trapped in a house with the man who is now legally her husband, she is only too aware that 'there were outrages which her husband was privileged to commit, under the sanction of marriage, at the bare thought of which her blood ran cold.'
The Married Women's Property Act
With such thinly disguised references to the subject of marital rape, Collins was clearly ahead of his time. It was only in 1991, well over a century later, that marital rape would be made a criminal offence in the UK. Collins also leaves the reader in no doubt as to his views on the vulnerability of married women in the eyes of the law.
Through the subplot featuring the working class Hester Dethridge, Collins reveals how working class wives could suffer materially as well as emotionally: 'you are a married woman. The law doesn't allow a married woman to call anything her own'. The exceptions are women who have been in a position to enlist the help of a lawyer to draw up a settlement prior to marriage but few women could have afforded such a privilege. The Married Women's Property Acts of 1872 and 1882 went some way to reddress the balance but too late for women such as Hester.
Anne Silvester only manages to escape marriage to the brutish Geoffrey Delamayn when he suffers an apoplectic seizure and is throttled by Hester Dethridge. The eventual changes to Divorce Law in the UK would be too late for her. Under the terms of the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act the husband had only to prove his wife's adultery, but the wife had to prove her husband had committed not just adultery but also incest, bigamy, cruelty or desertion.
Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins, first published in 1871. This edition, with introduction and notes by Norman Page, Oxford World's Classics, 1995
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