A recurring cultural myth is that of Pygmalian, an artist
who sculpted a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with her. After praying
to the goddess Venus, he came home one day to his sculpture, Galatea, brought
to life. He had literally created his own perfect woman. Contemporary audiences
are probably most familiar with the My
Fair Lady version of the story, where Professor Henry Higgins (Rex
Harrison) bets a friend that he can train the common flower seller Eliza
Dolittle (Audrey Hepburn) to pass in high society as a duchess. In How to Create the Perfect Wife, historian
Wendy Moore looks at the 18th century attempt of wealthy Georgian
landowner Thomas Day to create his own perfect wife by effectively abducting
two pre-pubescent girls from a foundling home and subjecting them to a training
and education program based on the novel and educational framework Emile by French philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau.
How to Create the
Perfect Wife is not very well written. Moore repeats my least favourite
historical writer’s flaw of attributing feelings to historical figures based on
what the author imagines the figure felt without any actual evidence. For
example, one of the orphans (Ann) and Thomas Day travel from the orphanage in
the English countryside from which he kidnapped her to London. Moore states: “After
the simple formality of institutional life in rural Shropshire, the chaotic
clamour of Georgian London must have struck Ann Kingston with a resounding
shock” (p. 52). However, she could equally have written “After the simple
formality of institutional life in rural Shropshire, the chaotic clamour of
Georgian London must have seemed full of life and possibilities to Ann” or
“After travelling for many days with a man such as Day, Ann must have been
longing for a soft bed and a friendly face.” Any of those could be equally
true, so why speculate at all? All historical biographers, please stick with
the facts and spare us useless conjecture.
That said, one of the best thing about this book is its meticulous
detailed research. Moore, using archival records, existing histories,
contemporaneous novels and many first-hand sources paints an excellent picture
of Georgian London. Thomas Day’s ‘wife project’ is very different to the other
wife project I wrote about recently but, even in his time where single and
married women could not hold property or other assets, it was highly unorthodox
for a single man to live unchaperoned with two young women. While one of the
pair is deemed unsuitable for marriage very soon into the project and is ‘given
away’ (urgh I hate this guy so very much), Day is involved with the second
girl, who he renames Sabrina, until she is in her late teens and his actions
affect both her ability to marry, as her reputation is sullied by her unusual
living conditions and her ability to live well, as he provides her with only a
small stipend yet his education of her has lead to her being almost completely
unemployable. I found it fascinating the extent to which Day’s friends and
acquaintances allowed him to continue with his practices, which they seemed to
acknowledge as horrible and harmful, because of suspect practices of their own
such as keeping a mistress or being involved in an extramarital affair.
The narrative is a bit fractured, with figures just dropping
in and out of the main story, but that’s how real life works. I found this a
truly fascinating story of power, abuse and historical experiences of being
female. It illustrates that domestic violence transcends not just wealth and
class but has occurred across time and is closely intertwined with power. I
hope that one day as a society we will move past thinking violence and control
against women is acceptable, although recent events suggest that time is a long
way away.
I give How to Create
the Perfect Wife three stars.
