Watson's marriages

[Peter Percival]

Watson seems to be too eager to abandon his patients in order that he
can go off with Holmes on his adventures. But he also seems to be too
eager to abandon his wife/wives. Were his marriages unhappy ones?

[Joe Pfeiffer]

He doesn't seem to want to talk about them, does he? Though he seems to
have been widowed at least once, since in "The Adventure of the Empty
House" he mentions his sad bereavement.

[fanoholmes]

I think the most common assumption is that he went off with Holmes all
the time, to the detriment of his family life. Possibly, and it would
have affected his marriage. But I would tend to think that since only
his adventures with Holmes are recorded, and not his daily practice
with patients or his home time, we are given a false impression. His
adventures could have been monthly or even more spread out, and we
would never know. We only know when he DID go off, and not when he
didn't.

[rt]

Don't try to evaluate this by modern standards. That was the Victorian era,
and women's right and roles were considerably different.

Some background

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Victorian_era

Mrs Watson probably had little say in the long run...

[Mike Ruddock]

"Peter Percival" <peterxp...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:lnk4jd$adh$1...@news.albasani.net...

> Watson seems to be too eager to abandon his patients in order that he can
> go off with Holmes on his adventures. But he also seems to be too eager
> to abandon his wife/wives. Were his marriages unhappy ones?

In "The man with the Twisted Lip" Mary Watson refers to her husband as
"James" so she obviously didn't know him very well.

Mind you Mary Morstan was a bit free with the truth. In "The Sign of Four"
she says her mother is dead, but after the marriage Watson says that she has
gone off to stay at her mother's house.

The explanation could be either two mothers or two wives.


Mike Ruddock

[Charlie]

On Thu, 10 Jul 2014 09:59:22 +0100, Mike Ruddock wrote:

> Mind you Mary Morstan was a bit free with the truth. In "The Sign of Four"
> she says her mother is dead, but after the marriage Watson says that she has
> gone off to stay at her mother's house.
>
> The explanation could be either two mothers or two wives.
>
> Mike Ruddock

Or Homer (aka Conan Doyle) nodded. :-)

[Steve Hodgson]

In article <c272vc...@mid.individual.net>, Mike Ruddock

<michael...@mypostoffice.co.uk> wrote:

> "Peter Percival" <peterxp...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:lnk4jd$adh$1...@news.albasani.net...
> > Watson seems to be too eager to abandon his patients in order that he can
> > go off with Holmes on his adventures. But he also seems to be too eager
> > to abandon his wife/wives. Were his marriages unhappy ones?
>
>
> In "The man with the Twisted Lip" Mary Watson refers to her husband as
> "James" so she obviously didn't know him very well.

I know when making sense of ACD's strangle anomalies there's a tendency
to stretch things a bit but there is a somewhat plausible explanation
for that. I think it's been suggested that the 'H' in John H Watson
might be Hamish which is the Scottish version of James.

I does appear to be stretching things a bit though.

--
Cheers,

Steve

[rt]

Maybe not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Watson

Dr Watson's first name is mentioned on only three occasions. Part one
of the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, is
subtitled Being a reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson,
M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department. In "The Problem of Thor
Bridge", Watson says that his dispatch box is labeled 'John H. Watson,
M.D'. His wife Mary Watson calls him 'James' in "The Man with the
Twisted Lip"; Dorothy L. Sayers speculates that Mary may be referring
to his middle name Hamish (an Anglicisation of 'Sheumais', the vocative
form of 'Seumas', the Scottish Gaelic for James), though Doyle himself
never addresses this beyond including the initial.

[colone...@yahoo.com]

On Mon, 21 Jul 2014, rt wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Watson
>
> Dr Watson's first name is mentioned on only three occasions. Part one
> of the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet, is
> subtitled Being a reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson,
> M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department. In "The Problem of Thor
> Bridge", Watson says that his dispatch box is labeled 'John H. Watson,
> M.D'. His wife Mary Watson calls him 'James' in "The Man with the
> Twisted Lip"; Dorothy L. Sayers speculates that Mary may be referring
> to his middle name Hamish (an Anglicisation of 'Sheumais', the vocative
> form of 'Seumas', the Scottish Gaelic for James), though Doyle himself
> never addresses this beyond including the initial.
>

Or perhaps it's a special pet name she has for him, a loving and endearing
term that only she uses. Like 'Hey Shorty!'...

Perhaps ``John H. Watson'' is a false name and James let his real name
slip?