automobile
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...
, and R.A.G. Trafford, a physicist specializing in crystallography whom she marries against the wishes of her family at the age of 21. The novel traces the history of their relationship, which begins when an early airplane Trafford is piloting crashes into the garden of a house Marjorie's family is renting for the summer.
Marjorie ("Madge") and Trafford ("Rag") make great efforts to understand and accommodate the other. On Trafford's part, this leads to his abandonment of scientific research and his involvement with industrial commerce. He makes his fortune by applying himself to
synthetic rubber
A synthetic rubber is an artificial elastomer. They are polymers synthesized from petroleum byproducts. About 32-million metric tons of rubbers are produced annually in the United States, and of that amount two thirds are synthetic. Synthetic rubbe ...
. But he grows more and more disenchanted with his abandonment of his commitment to a life lived for truth. Marjorie's social ambitions gradually alienate him, and he decides to leave everything behind him and think things out in the wilderness of
Labrador
, nickname = "The Big Land"
, etymology =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Canada
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 ...
. His widowed mother persuades him to take Marjorie with him, and leaving their home and four children behind they undertake to survive the winter in the wilderness. There they nearly perish, but they save their marriage by winning their way through to a satisfactory mutual understanding. The novel ends as they are returning to London to undertake, together, a critical engagement with the world. Trafford intends to devote himself to writing a book entitled ''From Realism to Reality'', which is to be "a pragmatist essay, a sustained attempt to undermine the confidence of all that scholasticism and logic chopping which still lingers like the ''sequelae'' of a disease in our University philosophy," while Marjorie intends to devote herself to being "his squaw and body-servant first of all, and then—a mother."
Themes
The novel treats satirically the absurd artificiality of
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
literature, reform movements, social life, and so on. The social sphere that Wells portrays in ''Marriage'' is that of the wealthy
bourgeoisie
The bourgeoisie ( , ) is a social class, equivalent to the middle or upper middle class. They are distinguished from, and traditionally contrasted with, the proletariat by their affluence, and their great cultural and financial capital. They ...
. But the novel preaches no particular political ideology, and its dénouement finds Trafford embracing and Marjorie accepting a diagnosis according to which humanity's fundamental problem is "the new, astonishing riddle of excessive power" and a religious philosophy according to which "Salvation's a collective thing and a mystical thing—or there isn't any."
Criticism
At 551 pages, ''Marriage'' is one of H.G. Wells's longest novels. Biographers have noted that Wells drew on his own experiences in describing Trafford's situation, but the inner life of this chaste hero bears little resemblance to Wells's own turbulent private life.
Wells serialized the novel in the U.S. in the ''
American Magazine
''The American Magazine'' was a periodical publication founded in June 1906, a continuation of failed publications purchased a few years earlier from publishing mogul Miriam Leslie. It succeeded ''Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly'' (1876–1904), ' ...
'' from November 1911 to October 1912. His need for income made him concerned when sales of the novel fell off after the first six months. Reviews of the complex novel were mixed but mostly positive.
Screen adaptations
John M. Siddall of the ''American Magazine'' inquired about making a film version of the novel in 1919, and the rights to it were sold to
Goldwyn Pictures
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company that operated from 1916 to 1924 when it was merged with two other production companies to form the major studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was founded on November 19, 1 ...
in the early 1920s. A 56-minute film was released in 1927, with Alan Durant starring as Trafford and
Virginia Valli
Virginia Valli (died September 24, 1968) was an American stage and film actress whose motion picture career started in the silent film era and lasted until the beginning of the sound film era of the 1930s.
Early life
Born Virginia McSweeney in ...
playing Marjorie. In the film, Trafford leaves Marjorie and goes to Africa on a research expedition, and Marjorie follows him and wins back his love. No prints of this film are known to survive.