Stand by your man! The loyalty of Emma Jung

Emma Rauscheback JungEmma was one of the richest heiresses in all of Switzerland when she met the handsome but penniless psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Carl Jung. 
Carl JungThe moment he set eyes on Emma, he knew she would become his wife. That instinct proved true - Emma agreed to marry him. They wed on Valentine's Day in 1903. 
Loyal and dedicated to her husband, Emma became his partner. She assisted him in his work and soon became an analyst like him. What really fascinated her, however, was the legend of the Holy Grail. 
The years of the marriage were more than turbulent. Carl Jung had a darker side he had kept hidden from her at first. The victim of child sexual abuse, he had always led a tortured, isolated life. 
As an analyst, she began to work independently of her husband and she regularly corresponded with Sigmund Freud. 
Their marriage produced five children. After the birth of their last child, Carl's philandering ways took root. That's when Carl met a young patient who began training under him. Her name was Toni Wolff, and Carl was entirely smitten by her. 


After the birth of his last child with Emma, he entered into an affair with Toni that lasted for several decades. 
He swept Toni to Ravenna on a secret vacation and even found a way to bring her into his household. Carol considered Toni to be his second wife. A gritty Emma tolerated the relationship between the two, but she banned Toni from sharing their meals or spending time with the family in the evening. In time, Carl begged Emma for a divorce, but she refused.    Carl's affairs did not begin or end with Toni Wolff. Other women came forward, namely Sabina Spielrein who kept a diary of her love affair with Carl. Despite Carl's affairs, he loved Emma. She died of cancer in 1955, six years before he did. He grieved her sorely, claiming she was the foundation of his home and calling her a queen. He had her gravestone engraved with, "Oh vase, sign of devotion and obedience."Author Catrine Clay has delved into researching Emma Jung's life and has put together her intriguing non-fictional biography entitled Labyrinths.
LABYRINTHSbyCatrine Clay   A sensational, eye-opening account of Emma Jung’s complex marriage to Carl Gustav Jung and the hitherto unknown role she played in the early years of the psychoanalytic movement.Clever and ambitious, Emma Jung yearned to study the natural sciences at the University of Zurich. But the strict rules of proper Swiss society at the beginning of the twentieth century dictated that a woman of Emma’s stature—one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland—travel to Paris to "finish" her education, to prepare for marriage to a suitable man.Engaged to the son of one of her father’s wealthy business colleagues, Emma’s conventional and predictable life was upended when she met Carl Jung. The son of a penniless pastor working as an assistant physician in an insane asylum, Jung dazzled Emma with his intelligence, confidence, and good looks. More important, he offered her freedom from the confines of a traditional haute-bourgeois life. But Emma did not know that Jung’s charisma masked a dark interior—fostered by a strange, isolated childhood and the sexual abuse he’d suffered as a boy—as well as a compulsive philandering that would threaten their marriage.Using letters, family interviews, and rich, never-before-published archival material, Catrine Clay illuminates the Jungs’ unorthodox marriage and explores how it shaped—and was shaped by—the scandalous new movement of psychoanalysis. Most important, Clay reveals how Carl Jung could never have achieved what he did without Emma supporting him through his private torments. The Emma that emerges in the pages of Labyrinths is a strong, brilliant woman, who, with her husband’s encouragement, becomes a successful analyst in her own right.
OPINION:
I don't normally read non-fiction. I prefer fictionalized biographies, but Labyrinths by Catrine Clay was entirely entertaining and well worth reading. It is obvious the author conducted in-depth research into Emma's life, drawing from personal letters, diaries, and articles of the time. Together, she gives us an intimate glimpse into the turbulent life of this famous couple. I also learned a great deal about psychoanalysis and the interpretation of dreams, a subject that has always fascinated me. 
If you adore reading about stoic, intelligent, and courageous women, despite facing numerous adversities, then this book is sure to keep you as entertained as it did me. Well worth reading! Highly recommended!