A review by jannie_mtl
Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose

4.0

This book was referenced in [b:My Life in Middlemarch|17883928|My Life in Middlemarch|Rebecca Mead|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1367929648s/17883928.jpg|25047012] by [a:Rebecca Mead|241450|Rebecca Mead|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1369262808p2/241450.jpg] and considers the lives of five Victorian couples, including George Eliot and George Henry Lewes. Fascinating, it looks at the different ways men and women were able to manage within the constraints of legal and social mores, before divorce became possible and at a time when people were welcome in society only if they conformed, no matter how superficially. Other couples considered were John Ruskin and Effie Gray; Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh; John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor; and Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth. An excellent read for anyone interested in these times.