Women's Role in the Late-Victorian England: George Gissing's The Odd Women and the 19th century Debate on Marriage and Divorce

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second relationship with a woman who would take him to 
exasperation.  
In a sad day of September, the author decided to go out for a walk. He 
rushed out of his flat and spoke to the first girl he came across. She 
agreed to walk with him to the Oxford Music Hall and to see him 
again. This woman was Edith Underwood. She lived with her father, a 
stonemason, in Camden Town. She had six brothers and sisters, her 
mother was dead. Gissing decided to continue his relationship with 
Edith, not because he was in love with her, but because he needed a 
woman; he was in a deep state of sexual frustration and this woman 
represented his only chance of survival. In 1891, they married, moved 
from London to Exeter in the country of Devon and, nine months 
later, Edith gave birth to a child: Walter Leonard Gissing. Having a 
child was at first a joy, but also a problem for the author. His financial 
situation was almost desperate. He tried to write and sell novels as 
much as possible, but he did not always succeed. Edith was another 
cause of desperation for him. She was sick, she suffered from 
neuralgia and she did not have a social life. Gissing spent the day in 
his study with the door closed, ignoring his wife, so Edith was lonely 
and began to show signs of mental instability. She was irritable and 
aggressive and the baby had to be kept away from her; she soon broke 
down, physically and mentally. Edith quarrelled with the servants who 
tried to help her, so Gissing had to look after the baby and keep the 
house running; all these responsibilities slowed the production of his 
novels
8
. In 1896, Edith gave birth to her second son: Alfred Charles 
Gissing; motherhood, however, could not mitigate her behaviour. 
                                                           
8 Paul Delany, George Gissing - A Life, pp. 177-178, 180, 187, 194, 198.