Forster - Good Wives: Mary, Fanny, Jennie and Me, 1845-2001

Contents

About the Book

In 1848 Mary Moffatt became the devoted wife of the missionary and explorer David Livingstone in Africa and it eventually killed her. A hundred and twelve years later, in 1960, Margaret Forster married her school sweetheart Hunter Davies in a London Registry Office and forty years later they are still married. Between those two marriages and their experience is a huge gulf during which time womens lives changed immeasurably, and the notion of marriage evolved through the other two marriages under the spotlight here, that of the unconventional Fanny Stevenson (wife of Robert Louis Stevenson) in the late 19th century and across continents and of our own charismatic 20th century Jennie Lee (wife of Aneurin Bevan), a politician in her own right. But curiously some aspects and attitudes remained fixed and immutable and found an echo in Forsters own life. Have these fixed points finally shifted now, with the coming of the 21st century? What was and is now a good wife? Why do couples still marry in church in an age of unbelief? Taking up where Hidden Lives left off, these are some of the questions Forster asks as she weaves personal experience, and the experiences of her own mother and grandmother, through the stories of three women who have long fascinated her. The emphasis is on aspects of these womens lives never focused on before, on the kind of personal and intimate and everyday detail which has intrigued and gripped readers of Forsters memoirs, biographies and fiction.

About the Author

Margaret Forster is the acclaimed author of best-selling novels, most recently The Memory Box, as well as biographies, of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Daphne du Maurier, and two memoirs, Hidden Lives and Precious Lives. She lives in London and the Lake District.

Also by Margaret Forster

Fiction

Dames Delight

Georgy Girl

The Bogeyman

The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff

The Park

Miss Owen-Owen is At Home

Fenella Phizackerley

Mr Bones Retreat

The Seduction of Mrs Pendlebury

Mother Can You Hear Me?

The Bride of Lowther Fell

Marital Rites

Private Papers

Have the Men Had Enough?

Ladys Maid

The Battle for Christabel

Mothers Boys

Shadow Baby

The Memory Box

Over

Non-fiction

The Rash Adventurer:

The Rise and Fall of Charles Edward Stuart

William Makepeace Thackeray:

Memoirs of a Victorian Gentleman

Significant Sisters:

The Grassroots of Active Feminism 18381939

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Daphne du Maurier

Hidden Lives

Rich Desserts & Captains Thin:

A Family & Their Times 18311931

Precious Lives

Poetry

Selected Poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Editor)

List of Illustrations

Facing Prologue

. Margaret Forster, front right, as bridesmaid, aged 11.

. Margaret Forster and Hunter Davies on their wedding day.

. David Livingstone, aged 39. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

. Mary Livingstone, in her thirties. (David Livingstone Centre, Blantyre)

. Map showing how far Livingstone travelled between 1841 and 1852. (from Livingstone by Tim Jeal/ Pimlico Press)

. The Livingstone family in 1857. (David Livingstone Centre, Blantyre)

. Fanny Osbourne, aged thirty-six. (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University)

. Portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson, c. 1880, by Alice Boughton. (National Portrait Gallery, London)

. The Stevenson family in 1891, on the veranda at Vailima, Samoa. (National Portrait Gallery, London, from Camera Portraits: 150 Portraits from the National Portrait Gallery 18391989, photo J. Davis)

. The Stevensons photographed on a trip to Sydney in 1893. (Writers Museum, Edinburgh/City of Edinburgh Council)

. Jennie Lee, newly elected MP for North Lanark. (Sport & General Press Agency, London/Alpha)

. Jennie Lee and Aneuran Bevin on their wedding day. (Hulton Deutsch Collection Ltd, London)

. Jennie Lee addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square in 1937. (NMPFT/Science & Society Picture Library)

. Jennie and Aneuran Bevin, married for over 25 years. (PA Reuters Photos Ltd)

. Margaret and Hunter Davies, silver wedding anniversary.

. Margaret and Hunter Davies, June 2001.

Margaret Forster

GOOD WIVES?

Mary, Fanny, Jennie and Me
18452001

Prologue

In July 1949, when I was eleven years old, I was a bridesmaid. I was just young enough still to be thrilled with the rose-pink satin dress and with the coronet of tiny rosebuds, which sat so perfectly on my long, wavy fair hair. At last I was that creature Id always yearned to be, a princess. I could hardly wait for the wedding, when I would have the honour of carrying the brides white chiffon train all the way down the aisle. But my deeply religious mother disapproved of my wild excitement. Weddings were serious. A man and a woman were to be married in the sight of God this was not a party, not an excuse for the sort of preening in which I gloried. She didnt want me being silly. There were to be no giggles, no tossing of my hair, no calling of attention to myself. Instead, in church I was to listen. I was to listen very carefully indeed to the words.

So I listened, as my mother undoubtedly knew I would. For a child, I was a good listener (too good, it was often said, because my listening inevitably resulted in irritating questions of the sort difficult to answer). I stood behind the bride, glad to have the posy of white and pink roses back in my eager hands once Id relinquished the train, and I listened intently to what the vicar said. It was simple enough when it came to the vows, merely a question-and-answer routine. But I spotted the difference in the questions easily. Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife? the bridegroom was asked, and then, a little later on, Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her in sickness and in health? But to the bride, the vicar said, Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him, in sickness and in health? I remember looking around to see if anyone else had noticed something odd, and catching the eye of my mother, who frowned and gestured that I should pay attention. But I was paying attention. And Id heard that word obey only when the bride was being questioned. Why did she have to promise to obey and he did not?

It was only 1949. It was only an ordinary parish church in Caldewgate, a poor area of Carlisle. It was only a marriage service which had been used for hundreds of years without anyone apparently finding one word in it unfair. I doubt if there was a single woman, never mind a man, in that congregation who objected to the brides making that promise. But I objected. The moment the photographs had been taken, I was pulling at my mothers sleeve. Why did Jean have to say shed obey Ian, and Ian didnt say hed obey her? Why? Because thats the order of service in the prayer-book, my mother said. Who said it had to say that? Who? Why? My mother sighed. She knew it was no good just telling me to be quiet, or saying I should just accept that this was how things were, because that, in her experience, would only result in exhaustion her exhaustion as she valiantly tried to satisfy my curiosity. So she said what she was quite often obliged to say Later, well go into it later, not now.