SOURCE: "Marriage," in The Novels of Mrs. Oliphant: A Subversive View of Traditional Themes, Peter Lang Publishing, 1994, pp. 169-95.

In the following essay, Rubik discusses Oliphant's treatment of marriage in her novels, finding her skeptical of marital happiness and often presenting an unromantic and unsentimental view of married life.

1) Oliphant's Fundamental Attitude

The traditional happy ending to the Victorian novel consists of the lovers' marriage, after which the course of their lives no longer needs to be related since, it is at least implied, they live happy ever after. Oliphant, who, as we have seen, appreciated the advantages of a free and independent life, comments on her contemporaries' idealisation of wedlock in a half-ironic, half-bemused tone.

It is curious how determined the mind of the English public at least is on this subject—that the man or woman who does not marry (especially the woman, by-the-bye) has an...