The Marriage between Germaine and Mary

Ellen Moody

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[This document is a note to the author's Trollope's Comfort Romances for Men: Heterosexual Male Heroism in his Work — GPL.]

Two studies have argued that hints in Trollope's text suggest that either the marriage between Germaine and Mary is not consummated until later in the book when Mary becomes pregnant, or George and Mary had not been able to enjoy orgasm together (been "galvanized") and the "sign" of this late development in the book is Mary's pregnancy. The chronology of Is He Popenjoy? led Markwick to wonder if in fact the second Popinjoy of the book, Mary's child, is George's after all: "Trollope's hidden joke here is that he gives Mary a ten and a half month pregnancy." Markwick, Trollope and Women, 148-55; "A Young Man's Jack," 23, and Juckes, 14-15.

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Last modified 9 August 2006