The Irony of Rosamond

"'The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him, Rosy,'...Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far he had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy appeared to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence her husband's mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid, using her comb and looking-glass and singing her song for the relaxation of his adored wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguish between that imagined adoration and the attraction towards a man's talent because it gives him prestige, and is like an order in his buttonhole or an Honourable before his name" (Eliot 479).

Rosamond and Lydgate's marriage is just as unhappy a marriage as Dorothea and Casaubon's. However, where Dorothea sought to please her husband, Rosamond does the very opposite. Lydgate asks her to refrain from riding horses during her pregnancy, but "...the discussion ended with his promising Rosamond, and not with her promising him" (480).

Rosamond, as a woman and a wife, has two primary responsibilities as defined by society: to obey her husband and to bear him children. She fails on both counts, and one failure results from the other. By defying Lydgate's desire, Rosamond faces a miscarriage and thus looses her unborn child. She has, as a Victorian woman, failed to fulfill her role in society.

Yet, as a woman, she is woefully restricted in an ironic way. Rosamond is socially ambitious; she wishes to climb the social ladder. However, she is restricted by her role as a woman. Unlike Lydgate, she has no possibilities to channel her energies outside the home, who is privileged to enter the public sphere. Therefore, her husband becomes the only outlet for her ambition. But it is Captain Lydgate that represents the world she wishes to enter. So when her husband forbids her to go riding again (a demand that only exacerbates her frustration), Rosamond's only reaction can be direct defiance. Lydgate just represents another male voice telling her what to do, thus highlighting her useless role as female in a patriarchal society where her ambition can only meet dead ends.

However, as Lydgate's wife, Rosamond has a duty to obey her husband's wishes, just like Dorothea listened to her husband. By defying Lydgate, Rosamond transgressed her socially accepted gender role. This can result in two ways: either a complete social breakdown of gender roles or a direct punishment for such defiance. The miscarriage represents the latter, and thus the maintenance of established gender roles. Rosamond's position as a woman and a wife ends up being her biggest downfall.