Throughout history diverse models of masculinity had been presented. In the 19th Century there was an archetypical male figure, whose role was to be pleased by her wife and subject her to his will. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a clear example of it. The novel shows an alcoholic, gambler and adulterous husband, Arthur Huntington; an egocentric man who profits from her wife, Helen. Fortunately, Gilbert Markham traces another path trying to be associated with a new model of masculinity in Victorian era.
To begin with, Gilbert not only wants to be devoted to his matrimony, but also he is willing to make her wife joyful, “I shall expect to find more pleasure in making my wife happy and comfortable, than in being made so by her” (Tenant: Ch. VI). This passage of the novel reinforces that Gilbert, even if he is like other men, decides to adapt his lifestyle to be in harmony with her lover, and future wife. Nevertheless, making this decision was not apparently favourable because it could be seen and gossiped as a lack of virility. Despite the rumours, Gilbert, “he is accustomed to and comfortable in the company of women” (Joshi: 917). Hence, he manages to establish solid bases to be a better husband, than Arthur was, for Helen.
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That is to say, at the time lots of marriages were constituted in a patriarchal way, in which wives were conformed on it. Under these circumstances, as it was socially correct, the vast majority of women do not accept a man, whose intention was to promote sex equality between spouses. This idea is undoubtedly supported when the words “You’ll do your business, and she, if she’s worthy of you, will do hers” (Tenant: Ch.VI) are transmitted to Gilbert on behalf of a married women and despite of it Gilbert continues thinking that another masculinity type is