Good Wives

Mary, Fanny, Jennie and Me, 1845-2001

Author: Margaret Forster

A wonderful exploration into what it means to be a wife, particularly a 'good wife', then and now, looked at through the lives and marriages of four extraordinary women in different eras.

The bestselling author of Hidden Lives explores four marriages, including her own, in different times and societies to find the answer.In 1848 Mary Moffatt became the wife of the missionary and explorer David Livingstone - and her obedience and devotion eventually killed her.

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Summary

A wonderful exploration into what it means to be a wife, particularly a 'good wife', then and now, looked at through the lives and marriages of four extraordinary women in different eras.

Description

A wonderful exploration into what it means to be a wife, particularly a 'good wife', then and now, looked at through the lives and marriages of four extraordinary women in different eras.What is a 'good wife'? The bestselling author of Hidden Lives explores four marriages, including her own, in different times and societies to find the answer.In 1848 Mary Moffatt became the wife of the missionary and explorer David Livingstone - and her obedience and devotion eventually killed her. In 1960, Margaret Forster married her school sweetheart Hunter Davies in a London Registry Office - and interpreted the role very differently. Between these two marriages is a huge gulf in which the notion of marriage changed immeasurably.Forster traces the shift in emphasis from submission to partnership, first through the marriage of one unconventional American, Fanny Osbourne, to Robert Louis Stevenson, in the late nineteenth century; and then through that of Jennie Lee to Aneurin Bevan in the 1930s.Why does a woman still want to be a wife in the twenty-first century? What is the value of marriage today? Why do couples still marry in church? These are some of the questions Forster asks as she weaves the personal experience of forty years through the stories of three wives who have long fascinated her.

Critic Reviews

“Forster gives a fascinating and eminently readable account of these women's lives and their marriages, and in doing so raises many questions regarding the changing relationship between the sexes”

Spectator
The star...emerges as Forster herself Times Literary Supplement
Lively and highly enjoyable Sunday Telegraph
Fascinating, compellingly written Independent
Forster raises crucial questions, and provides some provocative answers about what it means to be a wife, good or otherwise Mail on Sunday

About the Author

Born in Carlisle, Margaret Forster was the author of many successful and acclaimed novels, including Have the Men Had Enough?, Lady's Maid, Diary of an Ordinary Woman, Is There Anything You Want? , Keeping the World Away, Over and The Unknown Bridesmaid. She also wrote bestselling memoirs - Hidden Lives, Precious Lives and, most recently, My Life in Houses - and biographies. She was married to writer and journalist Hunter Davies and lived in London and the Lake District. She died in February 2016, just before her last novel, How to Measure a Cow, was published.