For Better, For Worse - William and Dorothy Carey's Marriage

William Carey was the pioneer among missionary pioneers and Bible translator par excellence.  But his wife Dorothy had emotional problems. In going through this brief write-up on the Careys, we should end up finding clues that will help preserve the mental health of our own marriages.    

The marriage of William and Dorothy was not exactly idyllic. For more than forty years, William pioneered and plodded as a missionary in India. Dorothy lasted fourteen years reluctantly and pitifully. The story of William Carey, the humble shoe maker who became a brilliant missionary linguist shows how, God plucked an unlikely candidate to be the leader of a multitude. But what about poor Dorothy?

Nothing is known of the courtship of the two. But when they married, Carey was nineteen, Dorothy was twenty five. In their small poverty stricken home, where they started their lives, when William was not working on shoes or gardening, he was reading or studying Greek or preaching. Dorothy was an illiterate. It is said that at the time of her marriage to William, she signed the church’s register with a “large, wobbly cross”.

Year two of the marriage was traumatic for the couple, with the death of their daughter Ann. A high fever left William bald at the age of twenty-one. The daughter’s death left Dorothy despondent and fearful. While William bought a wig to cover his bald, Dorothy found nothing to cover her emotional hurts. William got the opportunity to pastor a church in England. In his spare time, he learnt foreign languages – Greek, Latin, French, Dutch and Italian – all of which were relatively easy for him, while Dorothy was struggling with her alphabets in English.

With four children in the Carey household, it is said that William was apparently concerned about disciplining his own mind and was not concerned if his children were undisciplined in behaviour. Dorothy possibly felt neglected, even abandoned by her husband. He seemed always to have important things to do. William’s world was growing, but Dorothy’s was shrinking.  From the very beginning, even though William Carey was failing as a husband,  he was not going to quit, in his burden for a missionary outreach to India.

Poor Dorothy was not ready for her journey to India. She had plenty to fear in such a venture. The couple had now lost one more child, with three boys left. When she first refused to go with him to India, many were shocked. It was accepted that a wife would blindly follow her husband, wherever he would lead him. However after many days of persuasion, Dorothy reluctantly agreed to the decision that her sister Kitty would accompany the family to India.

Four months aboard in ship with three boys and a new born baby would pose a challenge for any mother. Dorothy must have sensed that she would probably never see England and her loved ones again. Not sharing her husband’s missionary commitment, she felt as if she were sailing toward a slow death. Dorothy’s depression deepened into neurosis when her sister Kitty left her after marrying an English man in India.

The Careys had made six moves in their first nine months on the mission field. In the sixth place not long before they settled, Peter, their five year old died of dysentery. William, himself who was stricken with malaria then, had to dig the grave of his own child, since no one opted to help. Peter was the third child that the Careys had lost. But for Dorothy, it was a loss of everything in her life. From then on, William speaks of his wife as his, “domestic affliction”. After this, in one of his letters, Carey wrote regarding the qualifications for future missionaries. One thing was that, “it is absolutely necessary for the wives of missionaries to be as hearty in the work as their husbands.” Previously, it had not dawned on William that this was so important.

While the Careys finally arrived at their new mission quarters in Serampore, Calcutta, Dorothy was so deranged, that she was incapable of sharing in any of the domestic responsibilities. Hannah Marshman, another coworker in the missionary team took care of the Carey boys. Hannah gets credit for disciplining the boys, because William Carey was from the beginning unsuccessful in disciplining his own children. Dorothy at this stage was turning violent and had to be confined in a separate room. She finally passed away at the age of fifty-one. In her fourteen years in India, she was deranged for nearly twelve years.

Six months after Dorothy died, William remarried. To Carey, Charlotte his second wife for another thirteen years, was everything a missionary wife should be. The joys of his second marriage aroused his desire to marry a third time after Charlotte passed away. It was a happy marriage again, ending with his own death eleven year later.

William Carey was a plodder in every sense. What caused Dorothy’s mental illness? Hereditary problem? Insecure living conditions? William seems to have easy-going and indecisive in his dealings with his own family. Probably, he could not provide the security and stability that Dorothy needed. Also Dorothy could not understand the missionary commitment and sacrifice, a couple has to have and face as a family  in a mission filed.

After writing on the Careys, I feel, couples today, need to remember often the vow we gave on our marriage day in the presence of God, as often as possible and take attempts to fulfil it:  "I ___ take you, ___, to be my (husband/wife), to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for as long as we both shall live." In both prosperous and adverse situations, we need to choose to be united in our married lives, holding on to His grace. 

(I have copied lines from William J. Petersen’s “Martin Luther Had a Wife” for this article.)