Higgins' wife and Hannah's husband: the missing spouses of North and South

I realized recently that I’ve never given much thought to Higgins’ past life with his wife. Were they a reasonably happy family? There’s no indication that they weren’t. And yet, there is no instance in the novel where Higgins speaks about his wife. Is it too painful to mention? Does he keep his emotions private, not wanting pity?

We know very little about Mrs. Higgins; it’s Bessy who mentions her at all. She died during the first strike Higgins was involved in, where the family starved. Bessy tells Margaret that she began working in the cotton mills soon after her mother died, and that her mother wanted Mary to keep up her schooling. There’s no indication of how many years ago she died, but it seems to be at least a couple years that Bessy has been working, and getting sicker.

Hannah Thornton is very private, keeping her emotions well smothered below her usual stern visage.

Margaret Hale is very fortunate to have both parents for the better part of Gaskell’s North and South. Edith, Bessy and Mary, and John and Fanny Thornton have only one parent.

It’s interesting to think of how often Gaskell creates a single parent situation in her stories. And the father-daughter relationship is the one most used. Mr. Hale and Margaret, Bessy and Nicholas. In Wives and Daughters it’s Molly and her widowed father. In Gaskell’s very first novel, Mary Barton. The main character loses her mother early on in the story, and is left alone with her father.