Marriage
Hester Derby encouraged her daughter to accept the proposal of an articled clerk, Thomas Robinson, who claimed to have an inheritance. Mary was against this idea, however after being stricken ill, and watching him take care of her and her younger brother, she felt that she owed him, and she did not want to disappoint her mother who was pushing for the engagement. After the early marriage, Robinson discovered that her husband did not have an inheritance. He continued to live an elaborate lifestyle however, and had multiple affairs that he made no effort to hide. Subsequently, she supported their family. After her husband squandered their money, the couple fled to Wales (where Robinson's only daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born in November). The family lived under house-arrest after Robinson's husband was imprisoned for debt. During this time, Mary Robinson found a patron in Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, who sponsored the publication of Robinson's first volume of poems, Captivity.
Read more about this topic: Mary Robinson (poet)
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“the marriage twists, holds firm, a sailor’s knot.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“But not gold in commercial quantities,
Just enough gold to make the engagement rings
And marriage rings of those who owned the farm.
What gold more innocent could one have asked for?”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)