Middlemarch on gender

Picture of Leigh Turner
Leigh Turner

Middlemarch on gender. The sexual politics of George Eliot’s 1871 masterpiece are relevant and contemporary. Here are 26 quotes on gender, sex and relationships.

Middlemarch on gender

Like some other 19thC fiction, Middlemarch has provoked negative responses or indifference over the years – yet critics now see it as one of the greatest novels in the English language.

One reason is how George Eliot deals with sexual politics in the novel. Indeed, Middlemarch on gender is startlingly contemporary – and amazingly funny. You just have to look!

Middlemarch by George Eliot: Dorothea and Will

This pic of Dorothea and Will does not make “Middlemarch” look much fun

Middlemarch by George Eliot is daunting – but worth it

Middlemarch can seem a daunting read – over 900 pages in most editions.  Not much happens; there is an immense cast-list of characters; and some of the issues with which it deals, such as the 1832 Reform Act, have faded from memory.

Yet the wisdom and elegance of the writing make this a masterpiece.

My advice: if you like to read the classics, you will enjoy Middlemarch.  As you adjust to the gentle rhythm of the story, extraordinary things begin to happen:

(i) George Eliot’s powerful commentary in Middlemarch on gender and relationships (see below) leaps off the page;

(ii) you begin to realise that, far from being old-fashioned, the novel is addressing contemporary issues of importance;

(iii) you find yourself in the presence of a writer whose characterisation is outstanding, together with her descriptions of nature and wit;

(iv) you discover that her prose teems with timeless epigrams (“A sense of contributing to form the world’s opinion makes conversation particularly cheerful”).  You can feast on this wisdom at my post George Eliot epigrams: Middlemarch.

Middlemarch on gender: 26 quotes

Given the scale of Middlemarch by George Eliot, I have decided to write a couple of linked blogs.  This, the first, explores 26 quotes on gender. Let’s get started with Middlemarch on gender.

A man’s mind – what there is of it…

  • A man’s mind – what there is of it – has always the advantage of being masculine,- as the smallest birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,- and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.
  • Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship? [Comment: pilulous means very small, like a pill]
  • “I should learn everything then,” she said to herself, still walking quickly along the bridle road through the wood. “It would be my duty to study that I might help him the better in his great works. There would be nothing trivial about our lives. Every-day things with us would mean the greatest things. It would be like marrying Pascal.”
  • Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of scientific prediction about them.

My lady’s tongue is like the meadow blades

  • My lady’s tongue is like the meadow blades, That cut you stroking them with idle hand.
  • Although Sir James was a sportsman, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey, valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase.
  • he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was.
  • it was not entirely out of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly.
  • he was gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or confess.

Middlemarch on gender: A woman dictates before marriage…

  • A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an appetite for submission afterwards. And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.
  • there are many blanks left in the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance [Comment: a pretty grim outlook]
  • as the day fixed for his marriage came nearer, Mr Casaubon did not find his spirits rising; nor did the contemplation of that matrimonial garden scene, where, as all experience showed, the path was to be bordered with flowers, prove persistently more enchanting to him than the accustomed vaults where he walked taper in hand.
  • Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment
  • “Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman,” said Mr. Chichely, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental to his theology.
  • Will did not know what to say, since it would not be useful for him to embrace her slippers, and tell her that he would die for her: it was clear that she required nothing of the sort

He always said “my love” when his manner was the coldest

  • “What is that, my love?” said Mr Casaubon (he always said “my love” when his manner was the coldest).
  • A wife, a modest young lady, with the purely appreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think her husband’s mind powerful.
  • Society never made the preposterous demand that a man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy.
  • “There was no denying that Dorothea was as virtuous and lovely a young lady as he could have obtained for a wife; but a young lady turned out to be something more troublesome than he had conceived.
  • A woman’s choice usually means taking the only man she can get.

Middlemarch on gender: When love… turned… galling

  • It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love’s bond has turned to this power of galling.  [Comment: the strife between Lydgate and Rosalind, and her obstinacy and confidence in disobeying him and then hating him, struck me as radical for 19thC literature]
  • She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man.
  • Rosamond being one of those women who live much in the idea that each man they meet would have preferred them if the preference had not been hopeless.
  • Rosamond’s discontent in her marriage was due to the conditions of marriage itself, to its demand for self-suppression and tolerance, and not to the nature of her husband; but the easy conception of an unreal Better had a sentimental charm which diverted her ennui [Comment: wonderful concept: “The unreal better”, the potential partner who seems so much better than what one has]
  • (Mary) “I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the world!” “Nonsense, child; you’ll think your husband better.” “Impossible,” said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; “husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order.”

I would welcome thoughts on Middlemarch, including on your appetite for more on this subject!

This is one of four posts of quotations from the marvellous Middlemarch. The complete list is: 

Do have a browse.

Something else to read

If you enjoy fresh, original writing, try my dystopian speculative thriller, Eternal Life. What if crime did pay, handsomely?

Eternal Life by Leigh Turner

Share:

Sign up for my update emails

…and receive a FREE short story!

I won’t pass on your details to third parties / unsubscribe whenever you wish

4 Responses

  1. I should think that a woman dictates after marriage and rarely before.

    The quote “My lady’s tongue is like the meadow blades, That cut you stroking them with idle hand.” makes me smile. And so does the statement “Husbands are an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order”. Doesn’t this make you, this specimen of mediocrity, cringe ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Articles

3 Body problem
Reviews

The Three-Body Problem

“The Three-Body Problem” is out on Netflix. Some Chinese critics are reportedly angered by the Netflix series, including its depiction of China. I can see why.

Read More
Travis McGee
Reviews

Travis McGee, loner prototype

Travis McGee, the creation of US author John D MacDonald, is a superb prototype of a loner hero. Lee Child cites him as an inspiration for his solo tough guy, Jack Reacher.

Read More
Phineas Finn
Reviews

Phineas Finn: The Irish Member

You have to worship an author who wrote: ‘It has been the great fault of our politicians that they have all wanted to do something.’

Read More
The Tunnel Under the World
Reviews

The Tunnel Under the World

The Tunnel Under the World begins with the words: “On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.”

Read More
Pip, Estella and Miss Haversham in "Great Expectations" by Dickens
Reviews

Great Expectations

“Great Expectations” is a stand-out Dickens: rich in wisdom, love and astonishing set pieces. It’s also full of great quotations – see here.

Read More
Can You Forgive Her
Reviews

Can You Forgive Her?

Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope oozes sex and politics. It’s funny, moving and enlightening. Read it.

Read More