Sherlock Holmes on Love and Marriage

By Elaine Viets of the Femmes Fatales

"This may account for the obvious fact that his wife has ceased to love him."

                                                                                            -- Sherlock Holmes, from The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

For me, that's the most memorable line in Holmesian fiction. The Blue Carbuncle opens on Christmas morning, when a local constable sees a tall man carrying a large dead goose being attacked by toughs. The man tried to defend himself, and swung his stick. Instead, he accidentally smashed a shop window. The man dropped his goose, lost his hat, and ran. So did the attackers. The puzzled constable gave Sherlock Holmes the goose and the hat.

Holmes examines the hat, which Watson calls a "very ordinary black hat of the usual round shape, hard and much the worse for wear . . . it was cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, although there seems to have been some attempt to hide the discolored patches by smearing them with ink."

The hat's owner is middle-aged, Holmes observes, and says "that his hair is grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses lime cream." And the dust is "not the gritty, grey dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, showing that the hat has been hung up indoors most of the time . . .

"That hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear that you have also been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's affection."

That line is still true. Call me old-fashioned, even sexist, but when I see an unkempt man, my first thought is "his wife has ceased to love him."

At work, I noticed a rather portly man would come into the office wearing a dingy white shirt and a ratty, stained tie. Water cooler gossip confirmed my suspicions: his wife had ceased to love him, and vice versa. They split and he took up with someone else. He spruced himself up for his new love, or maybe she considered him a remodeling project. Either way, his clothes were much cleaner and neater.

Last summer, I had dinner with an older man who had a bushy crop of nose hair. Once again, Sherlock's statement held true. This man was a recent widower. His late wife would have never let him out of the house in that condition. He either couldn't – or didn't – see the unsightly hair.

If my husband Don is heading for the door wearing a shirt with spots (and not the decorative kind), I ask him to change "or people will think I don't love you."

Are we our husband's keepers? Nowadays, you could also say a man's wife is too busy getting ready for her own job. But many wives still have a proprietary interest in their husband's appearance.

Don lets me know if I have a tag hanging out of the back of my blouse or if my hem is crooked, but he doesn't scan my outfits as carefully as I check his. Maybe he's afraid of that dreaded question: Does this make me look fat?

Not even Sherlock has a solution for that problem.

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Comments

[Marcia Talley]

This is so true! Also how you can tell a guy is having an affair! We once had a neighbor who always dressed in sweats and was way overweight. He suddenly went on a diet/exercise craze, starting dressing snazzily ... a strange car kept showing up in his driveway and eventually we caught sight of the girlfriend, confirming our suspicions.

[Alan P.]

What Marcia said!

I know several recently divorced men who all of a sudden have lost the dingy shirts they have worn since college along with a few pounds.

For that matter, I know a few getting divorced women who are now getting slimmer and have lost the baggy shirts at work look.

[Alan P.]

But I do the laundry in our house. No one brushes my hat but me. But I did realize that I have shirts older than my children so it might be time for them to go.

[Elaine Viets]

Aha! The old sudden urge to diet. You've nailed it, Marcia. Philandering men might as well take out an ad in the paper announcing, "I am having an affair."

[Elaine Viets]

So right, Alan. Adultery is an equal-opportunity activity.

[Elaine Viets]

Any chance you can pass those shirts off as "vintage," Alan?

[Storyteller Mary]

This could be an addendum to the '70s feminist essay "Why I Need a Wife." Actually, my ex was raised by his mother to be competent in household duties, because she wanted her "future daughters to thank" her. When his dad said, "You should have Mary fix that button for you," Jan said, "I can sew my own buttons!" Still, someone (or some robot) to oversee wardrobe would be quite helpful. ;-)

[Elaine Viets]

We all need wives, Mary, but what we're really saying is, "I need a servant," which is way different. Don, like Alan, does the laundry, and bless those men who do.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

When Jonathan and I became an item, I saw in this closet an entire collection of clothing I dubbed "The Southwestern Collection." It has, ahem, left the building.
I love him very much, and that was one of the early proofs.

[Elaine Viets]

That is true love, Hank.