Marriages
Fielding married his first wife, Charlotte Craddock, in 1734. Charlotte, on whom he later modelled the heroines of both Tom Jones and Amelia, died in 1744. By her he had five children, of whom a lone daughter, Henrietta, would survive childhood only to die at the age of 23, having already been "in deep decline" when she married military engineer James Gabriel Montresor months before. Three years after Charlotte's death, disregarding public opinion, he married her former maid, Mary Daniel, who was pregnant. Mary bore five children, three daughters who died young and sons William and Allen.
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Famous quotes containing the word marriages:
“Women have entered the work force . . . partly to express their feelings of self-worth . . . partly because today many families would not survive without two incomes, partly because they are not at all sure their marriages will last. The day of the husband as permanent meal-ticket is over, a fact most women recognize, however they feel about “women’s liberation.””
—Robert Neelly Bellah (20th century)
“If marriages were made by putting all the men’s names into one sack and the women’s names into another, and having them taken out by a blindfolded child like lottery numbers, there would be just as high a percentage of happy marriages as we have here in England.... If you can tell me of any trustworthy method of selecting a wife, I shall be happy to make use of it.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“If common sense had been consulted, how many marriages would never have taken place; if uncommon or divine sense, how few marriages such as we witness would ever have taken place!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)