{"id":269,"date":"2015-02-20T01:11:07","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T01:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=269"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:52:07","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:52:07","slug":"what-should-we-do-with-marian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2015\/02\/20\/what-should-we-do-with-marian\/","title":{"rendered":"What Should We Do With Marian?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"marian\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In his 1862 essay \u201cWhy are Women Redundant?\u201d William Rathbone Greg laments the excess population of single, unmarried women in Great Britain. Greg argues that this excess leads to moral and social evils such as women finding employment outside of the home and women having sexual relations with other women. To remedy this problem, Greg offers a plan for female emigration in order to restore the balance between the sexes.<\/p>\n

While Greg\u2019s proposition may appear ridiculous to twenty-first-century readers, reading Greg\u2019s essay alongside Wilkie Collins\u2019s The Woman in White<\/em> illuminates Collins\u2019s deep engagement with this issue of the redundant woman in his novel, particularly through the characters of Anne Catherick and Marian Halcombe.<\/p>\n

In her almost identical physical appearance to Laura Fairlie, Anne Catherick is redundant because she is essentially the duplicate of another woman. The novel later reveals that Laura and Anne are half sisters by the same father. Because Laura is legitimate and married, she survives; by contrast, Anne\u2014illegitimate and unmarried\u2014dies. Anne\u2019s death solves the problem of this redundancy, but not before their likeness enables Sir Percival and Count Fosco to create an elaborate scheme to steal Laura\u2019s identity and fortune. In light of Greg\u2019s essay, Collins appears to be commenting on the danger of redundant women.<\/p>\n

By the end of the novel, Marian emerges as the true redundant woman. After Walter and Laura marry, they worry about \u201cthe consideration of Marian\u2019s future\u201d (621) as a single, unmarried woman. Marian resolves to live with Walter and Laura in what is essentially a marriage of three. Marian\u2019s strange words to Walter deserve closer examination:<\/p>\n

\u201cWait a little till there are children\u2019s voices at your fireside. I will teach them to speak for me, in their <\/em>language; and the first lesson they say to their father and mother will be \u2013 We can\u2019t spare our aunt!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Marian clearly indicates reproduction as a byproduct of marriage, echoing Greg\u2019s concern over \u201cthe abnormal extent of female celibacy\u201d (162). While Marian will be celibate as an unmarried woman, she describes assuming the domestic role of the mother-as-teacher, thereby splitting female obligations between herself and her half sister.<\/p>\n

The word \u201cspare\u201d here is particularly complex. On one level, the word functions ironically because \u201cspare\u201d is synonymous with \u201credundant\u201d or \u201cextra.\u201d The meaning of the sentence, however, lies in tension with this denotation; taking the definition of \u201cspare\u201d as \u201cto part with\u201d (OED), \u201cWe can\u2019t spare our aunt!\u201d means that the children believe Marian\u00a0to be an absolutely essential part of their household. \u201cSpare\u201d may also carry a third, more nefarious meaning that contradicts the second: \u201cto abstain from destroying, removing\u201d (OED). In this interpretation of \u201ccan\u2019t spare,\u201d the children admit to the necessity of removing their aunt. According to Greg, this removal is necessary in order to eliminate the redundant woman. Collins clearly packs a lot of ambiguity into this line, which Greg\u2019s essay helps illuminate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his 1862 essay \u201cWhy are Women Redundant?\u201d William Rathbone Greg laments the excess population of single, unmarried women in Great Britain. Greg argues that this excess leads to moral and social evils such as women finding employment outside of the home and women having sexual relations with other women. To remedy this problem, Greg … Continue reading What Should We Do With Marian?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111380,108029],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-360-victorian-sexualities","category-spring-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}