Geological Scenes from Two Marriages – Mary Elizabeth Lyell and Emma Darwin Compared

When Charles Lyell married Mary Elizabeth Horner in 1832, he had found himself a well-educated wife who took interest in his geological endeavours. She acted as his geological and secretarial amanuensis. She accompanied him on his travels, went in the field together with her husband as well as alone. As Charles Lyell had trouble with his eyesight, Mary Elizabeth did a considerable part of his correspondence. She was fluent in German, Dutch and French, allowing her to act as interpreter. However, she was also greatly interested in palaeontology and over the years became an accomplished taxonomist of fossil shells in her own right. Seven years after Lyell, Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood. When she expressed her plans to read up on geology, her husband told her not to bother. Darwin apparently was favouring a wife who took care of his household, played the piano and cared for him during his long phases of illness. On Charles Lyell's marriage, Darwin commented negatively, believing that Lyell ill-treated his wife, when she sat by while the two men talked science. The paper explores the respective gender roles of the two women, the views of their husbands and how these were shaped by their upbringing.