Other Women (14 page)

Nevertheless, she did not have her duke as husband for very long. He died within three years of their marriage, in 1811. With the duke’s death the title moved to his heir, William George Cavendish Hartington, known as Hart to the family. Bess had to retire and, after a public fuss over what she was and wasn’t entitled to, moved to Rome, where she had other lovers. In 1824, exactly eighteen years after Georgiana’s death, Bess also died. Her body was returned to England and put in the grave alongside her two best friends, Georgiana and William Devonshire, along with Harriet, the duchess’s younger faithful sister.

Because women, and married women in particular, had such a hard time of it in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – not being able to own property, being the property of their husbands, not having the right to custody of their children and so on – there were some men and women who felt this imbalance needed to be righted. Marriage was being seen by some women as a legal form of slavery – and the idea of any woman wanting to enslave herself in that way was preposterous. These were radical thinkers of the time – and most conventional, respectable people were horrified by some of their notions.

If marriage held so many negatives aspects for women, why should they bother marrying? Why not live with the man they love and keep their freedom as well? The people who put forward such ideas were not talking about mistresses or a substitute marriage but a companionship in which both partners were equal. It also meant that when affection left a relationship the couple would be free to break apart and set up with another lover.

Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of Mary Shelley, was one such thinker. As a wife one gave up all reason to exist at all, she claimed. She thought women needed to have more equality in their relationships and she tried to practise what she believed in. It was not as easy as it looked in theory. She found herself in one relationship in which she wanted stability and monogamy but the man did not. She had an illegitimate child with him. She later married the philosopher William Godwin who shared her views on marriage, yet they got married in order to legitimise the birth of their daughter Mary.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Wollstonecraft’s and Godwin’s ideas influenced at least one, if not several, generations. It was certainly time for a change to the laws concerning marriage, women’s rights, property ownership and custody of children. It does not seem, however, that those enlightened individuals who proscribed to the practice of free love actually thought of the consequences, such as children and broken hearts, when they used it as a licence to sleep with whoever took their fancy. Free love needed to be guided by common sense and fair play.

Harriet Taylor (and John Stuart Mill) and Lizzie Flower (and William Johnson Fox) were best friends. Harriet was a married woman with a family and Lizzie was the young ward of an older married man.

Harriet Taylor was born in 1807 and by the age of 18 or 19 had married a man eleven years her senior, the respectable but dull John Taylor. Four years after her marriage, and as a mother of two boys, Harriet and her husband gave a dinner party. It was a large gathering and was made up of some of London’s most promising thinkers. One of the guests, the Unitarian Minister William Johnson Fox, brought a world-weary young man with him: John Stuart Mill. Mill had been brought up to be an intellectual and a scholar, having experienced a lonely and loveless childhood, being expected to achieve greatness through study and the use of intellect but to ignore the needs of his heart. He was said to have been reading Greek by the time he was 4.

Harriet Taylor was a member of Fox’s congregation at the South Place Chapel, and it was to him she made a confession of loneliness despite being married. It may or may not have been Fox’s intention for the two young people to meet. It is hardly likely that he wanted to start an affair between them (and it isn’t certain that Harriet and Mill had any kind of sexual relationship with each other before John Taylor’s death in 1849).

Harriet was no shrinking violet and had already been writing about women’s rights and position in society. Fox had encouraged her in her intellectual pursuits and so had Harriet Martineau, an established thinker and writer of her time. Martineau was an interesting woman who many considered extremely ugly. She was also very deaf, having to use an ear trumpet to aid her. When she was young she had lost her sense of taste and smell and had gradually lost most of her hearing too. She was also a member of the Unitarian church community, which was how she came to be a friend of Harriet Taylor’s.

Mill, in his early twenties, was ready to fall in love. Harriet Taylor, considered as beautiful as Harriet Martineau was considered ugly, must have shone like a gem next to her friend. It would not have been difficult for the young Mill to fall for her. Harriet for her part was feeling starved of excitement. Her poor husband was really a very good man: he was wealthy (always a happy characteristic), he had the same religious (Unitarian) beliefs that his wife had, he also supported the political reforms that she approved of. Yet Harriet confided to Fox that her husband was still not enough for her intellectual appetite.

In some of Harriet’s writings on women and marriage it is plain that she does not think that women get a fair deal. In one letter she writes that women are brought up with only one end in mind, to get married. She states that there are many women who find themselves without the benefit of having had a ceremony in church. Harriet’s conclusion is that they do not seem to suffer any more or less than those who are wed in the eyes of God. The letter continues to say that by setting marriage as a woman’s main goal in life, by actually going through the process and becoming a wife she in fact loses her very existence. Harriet was married to a man who was worthy, fair and probably truly loved his beautiful wife, but it doesn’t seem true that she reciprocated the feelings. For Harriet Taylor, being a wife and mother was not enough. This is not by any means a judgement on her. Even though we may feel sorry for John Taylor, whose main fault seems dullness, we can sympathise with a young woman who realises that she has achieved everything that was ever expected of her and she is not yet 25. If Harriet had known how it would be, she may well have followed the example of the other Harriet, the writer Martineau. Harriet Martineau achieved a miraculous amount of money for a woman writer in the nineteenth century, certainly enough to keep her living comfortably. However, the other Harriet had already made a choice and it seemed there was no way out of it.

When John Mill stepped onto the scene, Harriet Taylor began to bloom. Friends and relations of the pair must have known that the growing attachment was more than mere friendship. And when Harriet finally told her husband that she was in love with another man, although he was devastated it could hardly have been a surprise. John Taylor asked his wife to give up her lover.

In the meantime, Harriet’s best friend, another lively young woman, Eliza Flower, was having relationship issues of her own. She and her sister Sarah were made the wards of William Johnson Fox, Harriet Taylor’s friend and the minister of her church. The sisters’ father, Benjamin Flower, had been an outspoken journalist and a friend of Fox’s. On Flower’s death, Fox became the guardian for both girls. Sarah, the elder sister, became a poet, married and more or less left the scene. Eliza was a musician and went on to become a reputable composer. After her sister left the Fox’s home, Eliza (known as Lizzie) became her guardian’s mistress. Fox still had a wife with whom he had children.

Fox and Lizzie attempted to keep their affair secret, at least within the confines of the family home. Mrs Fox was, understandably, very unhappy about the situation and moved into another part of the house. She also demanded Fox get a legal separation. Fox declined, stating that the process was too expensive. In desperation the poor woman went to her friends, who were also members of her husband’s congregation, and poured her heart out to them. The result was an enormous scandal. The church community divided between their minister, Fox, and his injured spouse. Harriet Taylor and John Mill took Fox’s side in the debate. It was thought that a clergyman accused of adultery (and with his ward) would have had a hard time to keep his post, but to the amazement of many of his friends Fox managed to keep his position. Fox and Lizzie found a new home, leaving his wife and children in the old one and, even though Fox said he couldn’t afford it, he had to pay them a settlement fee.

While Harriet and Mill had remained faithful supporters of Fox and Lizzie, they did not follow their friends’ example. Fox urged them to follow suit. If it was all right for him then why should they not do the same?

Mill may have been keen to set up house with Harriet but she didn’t feel she could just dump her loyal and loving husband. Perhaps for Harriet marriage was, after all, something more than a contract in which a woman lost all sense of self. She did care for her husband and she knew he was already hurting because she loved someone else. He was also a kind man and the couple had three children.

Harriet’s husband came up with a solution that may not have been the perfect answer but one that certainly gave them all a bit of relief. He had a house set up for Harriet in Kent, where she could live with her baby daughter; John Taylor and the two boys would visit her regularly. At other times, usually at the weekends, John Mill would visit her as well. Whether the two men were able to keep out of each other’s way is not known, but it must have worked to a reasonable extent.

Mill was not content. He wanted Harriet to himself and he wanted to show her off to his friends in society. Yet society would not tolerate it and their one excursion into the London social scene was not a success. While nothing was said during the party, the host pulled Mill aside afterwards and told him it was not done and would not be tolerated. Mill’s friendship with the host dissolved shortly afterwards. The couple did not try to go out again. Not only was it a social problem to been seen out and about with someone else’s wife, it was not in the best interests of an aspiring politician.

In 1838 Mill and Harriet were allowed a holiday together in Naples. Harriet’s husband had escorted her to Paris, supposedly to make it look like a respectable family vacation. After a short time in Paris with Harriet and young Helen (their daughter), John Taylor went home to his boys and business. The other John took up where the husband left off and he and Harriet, and Helen, spent three months together.

Mill always maintained that he and Harriet did not have a sexual relationship while she was still married to John Taylor. This may or may not have been the case. It does seem rather unlikely that the two of them, so in love and on their own, would not give in to a passion that had led to such odd living circumstances of the Taylor household. This way of living for the three of them went on for nearly twenty years and ended only with John Taylor’s death in 1849.

Harriet Taylor took two years to mourn her dead husband: leaving a respectable period before she married her lover was at least one last thing she could do for him. In 1851 Harriet threw aside her widow’s weeds and married John Mill. There were rumours flying around town that he had only stuck with Harriet for so long so that he could get his hands on the other man’s extensive wealth, but it seems he was really after Harriet, which, no doubt, John Taylor would have considered his most prized jewel.