"But
remember, Alan, what I say I mean; on these terms it shall be, and
upon none others. Brave women before me have tried for awhile to
act on their own responsibility, for the good of their sex; but
never of their own free will from the very beginning. They have
avoided marriage, not because they thought it a shame and a
surrender, a treason to their sex, a base yielding to the unjust
pretensions of men, but because there existed at the time some
obstacle in their way in the shape of the vested interest of some
other woman. When Mary Godwin chose to mate herself with Shelley,
she took her good name in her hands; but still there was Harriet.
As soon as Harriet was dead, Mary showed she had no deep principle
of action involved, by marrying Shelley. When George Eliot chose
to pass her life with Lewes on terms of equal freedom, she defied
the man-made law; but still, there was his wife to prevent the
possibility of a legalized union. As soon as Lewes was dead,
George Eliot showed she had no principle involved, by marrying
another man.
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