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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wives and Daughters, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
Class, Status, and Romance
Independence, Opportunities, and Gender
Challenges, Growth, and Community
Gossip and Rumors
Summary
Analysis
Molly is initially supposed to stay with the Hamleys for a fortnight. But a few days into Molly’s stay, two household matters occur in Mr. Gibson’s home, one of which Gibson considers relatively minor. First, having learned of Bethia’s involvement in Mr. Coxe’s scheme to declare his affection to Molly, Gibson dismissed Bethia, though not before finding a suitable new placement for her. Bethia has been a kind of apprentice to Gibson’s cook, Jenny, and Jenny takes offense at Bethia’s dismissal. Gibson is now trying to smooth things over with Jenny.
This passage briefly alludes to a fuller picture of the socioeconomic standings of various people in the Hollingford community. While Mr. Gibson and the Gibson family are of a lower socioeconomic status than the Hamleys or the Cumnors, Mr. Gibson is still financially secure enough to employ servants and cooks for his household. This passage also emphasizes that while the Gibsons aren’t aristocrats, there are people who occupy a lower socioeconomic status than the Gibson family.
Themes
Literary Devices
The second household matter concerns a letter from Miss Eyre. When Molly went to stay with the Hamleys, Miss Eyre accompanied her family, including her nieces and nephews, to the coast. In a letter, Miss Eyre writes that one of the nephews has come down with scarlet fever, so she cannot return to the Gibsons as soon as she had planned. After learning that news, Mr. Gibson decides that Molly won’t be able to return home as soon as he thought.
This passage underlines a motif of sickness and illness that will run throughout the novel, a motif that is underlined by Mr. Gibson’s role as the town’s doctor. In this instance, fear of contagion makes it impossible for Miss Eyre to return to the Gibsons, which makes Gibson rethink his plan to have Molly return home and also foreshadows events that will happen later in the novel.
Themes
Mr. Gibson goes to the Hamleys and asks Mrs. Hamley if they would mind if Molly stayed with them a bit longer. Mrs. Hamley says that nothing would make her and Squire Hamley happier, as they’ve already grown quite fond of Molly. Though Molly enjoys staying with the Hamleys, she also wants to return home to be near her father, and she asks if she might go home instead of staying at the Hamleys. Gibson chastises her for being rude and asks if she thinks she is wiser than he is. Molly realizes that she has no choice in the matter.
This passage makes it clear that while Molly was initially trepidatious about going to stay with the Hamleys, since spending time with them, she and the family have grown close to and fond of one another. Gibson’s response to Molly’s desire to go home underlines the sexist gender dynamics of the era, in which Gibson seems to consider himself wiser than Molly not just because he is her father, but because he is a man and she is a woman.
Themes
Meanwhile, when Squire Hamley hears that Molly will stay for longer, he becomes worried because Osborne and Roger will be returning home. Mrs. Hamley reassures Squire Hamley that Molly isn’t the kind of person that young men would find attractive because she doesn’t wear the latest styles and isn’t on the cutting edge. The Hamleys then receive word that Osborne intends to stay at Cambridge and perhaps take a tour of Europe, so only Roger will be returning home. Molly is initially distraught about staying at the Hamleys’ house, but she quickly becomes distracted from her pain by the daily tasks at the Hamleys’ house, and the next several days pass happily.
Squire Hamley’s worries—and the logic Mrs. Hamley uses to assuage those worries— further highlight the sexism of the novel’s 19th-century England. Squire Hamley is essentially worried that his sons might try to make advances on Molly since she is a young woman. His fears insinuate that his sons are unable to control their urges, and this in turn insinuates that Osborne and Roger can’t be held responsible for their actions or what harm those actions might cause Molly. Mrs. Hamley’s suggestion that her sons won’t be interested in Molly because she’s not fashionable, meanwhile, reduces Molly to an object of desire whose entire worth rests on her appearance, not on her smarts or personality.
Themes
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