Mary Delany - Married Life

Married Life

The Pendarveses left for Roscrow Castle in April; once settled, Mrs Pendarves was able to enjoy the great views that Roscrow offered, and was able to get in quite a bit of riding. Mr Pendarves's gout grew worse as the year progressed, and in the second year of their marriage, Mrs Pendarves was forced to nurse her ailing husband. In 1721, the two took a house in London and there, though Mr Pendarves began to drink excessively, Mrs Pendarves was able to be reunited with many of her old friends. In 1724, Mr Pendarves died suddenly in his sleep, leaving his young wife a widow. Mr Pendarves had not altered his will after his marriage, and so Mrs Pendarves did not inherit what remained of his estate. "Mr. Pendarves, concerned with the bottle that allowed him to forget the loss of part of his fortune, had had no time to consider settling the rest of it on his wife."

Despite her lack of resources, widowhood provided new opportunities for Mrs Pendarves. Widows, unlike unmarried women, were able to move freely in society, and for the first time in her life, Mrs Pendarves was able to pursue her own interests without the oversight of any man. Perhaps because of her own unhappy marriage, she was not satisfied with the options available to women in the 18th century. She wrote, "Why must women be driven to the necessity of marrying? a state that should always be a matter of choice! and if a young woman has not fortune sufficient to maintain her in the situation she has been bred to, what can she do, but marry?" Mrs Pendarves was a very perceptive woman, "She judged everything and everybody for herself; and, while ridiculing all empty-headed or vain insipidity, whether fashionable or eccentric, was always ready to applaud the unusual, if sincere and worthy. She was eager in the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds to the end of her life..."

Because she had no home of her own, after her first husband's death, Mrs Pendarves spent time living with various relatives and friends. To begin with, she lived with her aunt and uncle Stanley, and after her aunt's death, she spent time in Ireland with the family of her friend Mrs Donellan. In Ireland, Mrs Pendarves made the acquaintance of Dr Patrick Delany, an Irish clergyman who was already married to a rich widow. It was not until 1743 that on a trip to London Dr Delany proposed to Mrs Pendarves, much to the dismay of her family. She chose to take Dr Delany as her husband, and the two were married in June 1743.

The Delanys passed a year in London before moving to Dublin, where Dr Delany had a home. Both husband and wife were very interested in botany and gardening: "Their mutual pleasure in their garden at Delville near Dublin in particular, his encouragement of her gardening, painting, shell-work and needlework resulted in a surge of activity in a variety of media in all of which the basic theme was the flower, whether in stocking the Delville garden, painting garden landscapes, decorating interiors with shells, or working embroideries." After twenty-five years of marriage, most of it spent in Ireland, Dr Delany died in Bath, England, on May 6, 1768 at the age of eighty-four, and Mrs Delany found herself, once again, a widow.