Marriage of Inconvenience

 

The accepted story of the Ruskin marriage has never lost its fascination. History books, novels, television series, operas, and film have all follow a standard line. Effie Gray was an innocent victim of a male-dominated society, repressed and mistreated; John Ruskin, the greatest art critic and social reformer of his time, was a callous misogynist and upholder of the patriarchy; and John Everett Millais, boy genius, rescued the heroine from the tyrannical clutches of the husband who supposedly left his wedding unconsummated for six years. This narrative seems to offer an easy take on the Victorians and how we have moved on. But the story isn't true. The story turns out not to be all about impotence and pubic hair, but as much about money, power, and freedom. This book uses extensive documentary evidence—much of it never seen before, and much of it hitherto suppressed—to reveal a story no less fascinating and human, no less illuminating about the Victorians, and far more instructive about our own times, than the myths that have grown up about the most notorious marriage of the 19th century.