Love and Marriage Theme Analysis

Helen makes a tragic choice when she marries Arthur Huntingdon—a decision based on infatuation rather than logic. But Helen is not the only character who throws herself away on an unworthy partner; time and time again in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, young people commit themselves to impractical and ultimately destructive relationships that rob them of years of peace and tranquility. Older and wiser people like Helen’s aunt, Mrs. Maxwell, understand the potential for an infatuation to determine the course of a person’s life, which is why she tries in vain to talk Helen out of marrying Arthur, and why Mrs. Markham attempts to dissuade Gilbert from forming any serious plans to marry Eliza Millward. In depicting a number of unfortunate alliances, Brontë points to the dangers of romance, and more specifically the dangers of deciding to bind oneself to another person for life (especially considering her society’s restrictions on divorce and notions of women as property) based on romantic attraction alone. Were young people to marry for more rational reasons, their unions and adult lives would be much happier. The book, then, serves as a warning to the naïve and inexperienced. Choose unwisely in the matter of love, Brontë suggests, and you could be doomed to a lifetime of loneliness and regret.

Helen is attracted to Arthur for the very qualities that eventually end up alienating her from him. She finds him charming, lively, and carefree. Over time, though, she discovers that he’s actually an immoral alcoholic with no patience for productive employment. He wants only to be drinking and carousing with his friends, and, when such fun is not to be had, he mopes around the house, lazy and directionless. Mrs. Maxwell had warned Helen that such a fate could be hers if she let her heart rather than her head guide her choice of a mate. “First study; then approve; then love,” Mrs. Maxwell advised. “Let your eyes be blind to all external attractions, your ears deaf to all the fascinations of flattery and light discourse—These are nothing—and worse than nothing—snares and wiles of the tempter, to lure the thoughtless to their own destruction.”

Helen learns the wisdom of her aunt’s words the hard way. Helen’s love for Arthur soon turns to hate, and hate eventually gives way to indifference. Helen and Arthur have nothing of substance in common. They shared only an initial attraction, and that is not enough to make them suitable life partners. Arthur, in turn, grows to despise Helen. He resents her goodness and is bored by her piety and devotion to little Arthur. Brontë does not seem to be suggesting that such a sad state is inevitable—but rather, that this outcome is the result of selecting one’s life partner based on shallow considerations like looks, riches, status, and charm.

Lord Lowborough marries Annabella Wilmot without the benefit of understanding the young woman’s true character. He proposes to her because he is bewitched by her beauty and charm, and she accepts the proposal because she wants his title. It isn’t long before her unkindness and her ongoing flirtation with Arthur Huntingdon make Lord Lowborough’s life a misery. In many ways, their marriage parallels Helen and Arthur’s. Lowborough, doing his best to live a good life after years of alcohol and opium abuse, marries a beautiful woman completely unsuited to his character. When he finds out about his wife’s adulterous relationship with Arthur, he considers ending his life.

But given that The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in some regards a cautionary tale, the just characters are suitably rewarded in love, while the unjust are punished. Lord Lowborough is a good man at heart and, like the rest of the novel’s morally upstanding characters, he eventually experiences the redemptive side of romantic love. Freed from Lady Lowborough, who moves to town to pursue a life of pleasure, Lord Lowborough finds happiness with a plain but worthy woman. Millicent Hargrave, too, eventually receives her reward. Her husband, Ralph Hattersley, decides to leave behind the irresponsible and irreverent companions of his youth and devote himself to Millicent and their children. The couple is thereafter happy and prosperous. Esther Hargrave resists her mother’s pressure to marry Mr. Oldfield and is rewarded with the love of Frederick Lawrence. Mary Millward becomes the beloved wife of the studious Richard Wilson.

Helen, of course—being the protagonist and most angelic of all the novel’s characters—is fittingly given the most desirable fate. Not only does Arthur conveniently die just as Gilbert’s love for her reaches its zenith, but Helen inherits her uncle’s sizeable fortune and ends up partnered with a loving husband who gives her a second chance both at conjugal love and the joys of motherhood.

Likewise, the novel’s unsympathetic characters—Arthur, Eliza Millward, Jane Wilson, Lady Lowborough, Mr. Grimsby, and Walter Hargrave­—eventually get their come-uppance. Eliza marries a tradesman and grows increasingly petty and malicious, Jane Wilson ends up as a spinster, Lady Lowborough is abandoned by her lover, Grimbsy dies in a drunken brawl, and Hargrave is hated by his wife, his tenants, and his workers alike.

By rewarding the good and punishing the wicked, Brontë’s treatment of romantic love is perhaps overly simplistic. Everyone’s fate is sealed neatly, the story wrapped up in a tidy bow, and Gilbert and Helen are left to live happily ever after with their children on their vast estate. Brontë does suggest, however, that a certain amount of moral fortitude is required to achieve such earthly bliss. It is rare that women like Helen Graham and Milicent Hargrave get a second chance at happiness. Instead of banking on such unlikely outcomes, a young person should make a smart choice from the beginning.