Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism

Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism is the most powerful and persistent force shaping the daily rhythms of Hartfield, the emotional landscape of his daughter Emma's life, and the central practical obstacle to her eventual marriage. A nervous, affectionate, and deeply self-absorbed man, he has been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, and is a much older man in ways than in years. His constitution and habits, combined with the fact that he did not marry early, create a profound disparity in age and temperament between himself and Emma, who has lived nearly twenty-one years with very little to distress or vex her. His gentle selfishness and inability to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself make him the unwitting tyrant of his own small kingdom, and his daughter must perpetually manage his fears, indulge his fancies, and sacrifice her own desires to his comfort.

Nature and Manifestations

Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism is not a single illness but a pervasive system of anxieties and bodily preoccupations. He is a nervous man, easily depressed, fond of everybody he is used to and hating to part with them, hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, is always disagreeable to him, and he can never speak of his own daughter Isabella's marriage without compassion, though it was entirely a match of affection. His concern extends to the most trivial details of domestic life: he earnestly tries to dissuade the Westons from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proves vain, as earnestly tries to prevent anybody's eating it, consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. He believes that what is unwholesome to him is unfit for anybody, and his own stomach can bear nothing rich. His fears about weather, draughts, and colds are constant and elaborate; he cannot bear the idea of Isabella stirring out of her house in the fogs of December, and he regards the sea as very rarely of use to anybody, being sure it almost killed him once. His own diet is a model of cautious self-care: he recommends a small basin of thin gruel, and can only with thorough self-approbation propose that others venture on a very small egg boiled very soft, or a very little bit of apple-tart, or half a glass of wine put into a tumbler of water.

Impact on Emma's Life

Emma's situation is defined by her father's needs. She is the mistress of his house from a very early period, and her mother died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses. Her father is no companion for her; he cannot meet her in conversation, rational or playful. His spirits require support, and Emma must smile and chat as cheerfully as she can to keep him from melancholy thoughts. She cannot go to church on Christmas Day because Mr. Woodhouse would be miserable if she attempted it. She cannot use the carriage for charitable purposes because her father would deem it impossible that James should put-to for such a purpose. The very prospect of her marrying is a source of such distress to him that she must approach the subject with elaborate care, and even after she and Mr. Knightley are engaged, she hesitates to proceed because she cannot bear to see him suffering, to know him fancying himself neglected. Her resolution never to marry is partly a genuine reflection of her situation: she believes few married women are half as much mistress of their husband's house as she is of Hartfield, and never, never could she expect to be so truly beloved and important, so always first and always right in any man's eyes as she is in her father's.

Social and Domestic Consequences

Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism dictates the social life of Hartfield. He has not much intercourse with any families beyond his own little circle; his horror of late hours and large dinner-parties makes him unfit for any acquaintance but such as will visit him on his own terms. Evening parties are what he prefers, and unless he fancies himself at any time unequal to company, there is scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma cannot make up a card-table for him. The guests who are most come-at-able are Mrs. and Miss Bates and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who are fetched and carried home so often that Mr. Woodhouse thinks it no hardship for either James or the horses—though had it taken place only once a year, it would have been a grievance. His fears about the Crown Inn as a venue for the ball are extensive: he thinks a room at an inn is always damp and dangerous, never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited, and he has never been in the room at the Crown in his life and does not know the people who keep it by sight. Only the combined persuasions of Emma, Mrs. Weston, and Frank Churchill, who cleverly argues that the larger room will require no windows to be opened, can overcome his objections.

Relationship with Mr. Perry

Mr. Perry, the apothecary, is one of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse's life. His frequent visits are a source of reassurance, and Mr. Woodhouse consults him on matters ranging from the wholesomeness of wedding-cake to the best sea-bathing places. He quotes Mr. Perry's opinions as authoritative, often attributing to Perry his own feelings and expressions. When John Knightley sharply criticizes Mr. Perry for presuming to wonder at his taking his family to South End, Mr. Woodhouse is rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his friend. The dependence on Perry is so complete that Mr. Woodhouse cannot believe other people to be different from himself in their need for medical guidance; he is perpetually recommending that Isabella consult Perry about her children's health, and he himself has a question or two to ask Perry about himself of some consequence.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

Mr. Woodhouse's valetudinarianism is not merely a comic eccentricity but a structural element of the plot. It prevents Emma from traveling, limits her society, and makes her marriage to Mr. Knightley possible only through the extraordinary solution of Mr. Knightley's agreeing to live at Hartfield. The resolution of this difficulty—the plan that Mr. Knightley should be received at Hartfield so that Mr. Woodhouse need never be taken from his home—is presented as the most felicitous aspect of the match, one that Mrs. Weston recognizes as singularly fortunate, since very few men in a rank of life to address Emma would have renounced their own home for Hartfield. The eventual acceptance of the marriage is brought about not by any sudden illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind or any wonderful change of his nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another way: a poultry-house robbery so frightens him that he comes to depend on the protection of the Mr. Knightleys, and thus consents to the wedding with a much more voluntary, cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for. His valetudinarianism, which has been the great obstacle, thus becomes, through a comic irony, the very mechanism that removes it.