The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life by Clare Carlisle

The Marriage Question: George Eliot’s Double Life (2023), authored by philosopher Clare Carlisle, is a biographical study that centers on George Eliot’s unconventional domestic life and its profound influence on her fiction. It traces how, from 1854 to 1878, Eliot cohabited with George Henry Lewes without legal marriage, embracing the union as a genuine marital bond. Her public and private experiences, Korn mediate this arrangement, allowed her to inhabit what she called a “double life,” which she believed endowed her with enhanced emotional and intellectual strength. Carlisle’s work situates this personal history within Eliot’s broader literary and philosophical framework. She argues that the moral and psychological dilemmas in Eliot’s major novels—particularly those involving troubled marriages and moral conflict—derive from Eliot’s lived reality. Carlisle links Eliot’s domestic choices to her artistic exploration of themes such as desire, sacrifice, motherhood, creativity, and trust. Critics commend the book for illuminating how Eliot’s radical personal life shaped her fiction and positioned her as a thoughtful moral philosopher of her age.