Emma Darwin

I made a throw-away joke about Darwin's reason for marrying -- that he did it only because he needed a recipe even to boil rice. Now, Deborah Heiligman who's written a book about Charles and Emma Darwin's marriage commented on my post:

In fact Darwin had a loving and very happy marriage. See my piece http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heiligman29-2009jan29,0,1470714.story

Two things:

(1) Real writers are not supposed to respond to blogs. What's the world coming to?

(2) The piece in the L.A.Times is quite interesting -- so the rift over religion is probably why Charles expected to quarrel quite a bit with Emma. But it is also an interesting narrative of how a strong woman could find a place for herself within a traditional marriage.

But in a letter she sent him soon after their engagement, she told him that she was sad that "our opinions on the most important subject should differ widely." ... This was the first of several letters about religion that Emma wrote to Charles during their lives. She urged him not to close the door on faith. And she shared her fears that they would be separated for eternity. Charles always listened to what she had to say, and they talked about the problem.

The historical person that Emma Darwin most reminds me of is Abigail Adams. Time to read "Charles and Emma", perhaps.

p.s. I went to the Norman public library to search for the book. They have a book on Charles & Diana, but not Charles and Emma