‘It begins with a prince kissing an angel…’ . The concept of marriage runs deep into our ancestry and is one of the fundamental building blocks of our society. Although it would be impossible to put a specific date on the beginnings of marriage, in Biblical terms at least, it is the relationship between Adam and Eve that is considered to be the original ‘marriage’. In the beginning there was Adam. After God created all other creatures of the world, Adam was still alone and was not complete until the creation of Eve. This shows that no single being can ever be complete. This relationship is portrayed in John Milton’s Paradise Lost and Virginia Woolf in her novel Mrs Dalloway, examines marriage and the various forms it can take on.

However marriage came about, there are a number of different aspects which merit consideration when discussing the subject; the ideology of marriage, gender roles, intimacy, social taboos and realism.

The relationship Adam and Eve share in Paradise Lost, at least before ‘The Fall’ in Book IX, sums up our idealistic notions of marriage. They epitomise the ‘perfect couple’; both young, both beautiful and both very much infatua

There is evidence in both marriages in Mrs Dalloway of repressed, and sometimes not so hidden, homosexual tendencies and the lack of any sexual relationship within both marriages adds more weight to this notion. The character of Clarissa in particular whether realising or not, makes references to ‘sometimes yielding to the charm of a woman’ and feeling ‘what men felt.’

Thy sweet converse and love so dearly joined,

Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet. (Book IV lines 650- 656)

In the case of the Smith’s marriage, Septimus reveals that he never loved his wife and Lucrezia declares ‘To love makes one solitary’, ‘I am alone; I am alone!’ This goes against the ideals of marriage as the joining of two people and indeed Septimus and Lucrezia do not have a good marriage, at least in an ideal sense. Lucrezia loves her husband but it is an unrequited love: ‘She had a right to his arm, though it was without feeling…He would give her a piece of bone.’ She is desperate for her marriage to work: this is clear from her continual repetition of the word ‘husband’.

Some topics in this essay:
Peter Walsh, Book IX, Book VIII, Garden Eden, Book IV, Adam Eve, Clarissa Richard, Septimus Lucrezia, Paradise Lost, Septimus Greek, adam eve, paradise lost, book iv, book ix, iv lines, gender roles, ix lines, book iv lines, book ix lines, book viii lines, beginning adam, relationship adam, viii lines, relationship adam eve,