Homes made and marred: a book for working men and their wives.

"Homes made and marred" by Lucy Ellen Guernsey is a didactic domestic novel written in the mid-19th century. It explores how temperance, self-control, and Christian forbearance can either build or break working-class homes, following Matthew Hill and his wife Jane as their marriage is tested by pride, anger, and drink, with wise counsel from Mrs. Oakland and the steady example of Benjamin and Ellen Field countered by the corrosive influence of the gossiping Mrs. Swinden.

The opening of the story introduces Matthew, a capable young workman, seeking to marry Jane, a housemaid whom Mrs. Oakland warns has a dangerous temper. Early married comfort gives way to a crisis when a brick and soot fall down the chimney; Jane’s outburst drives Matthew to the pub, he returns drunk, and a fever sends him to the infirmary, where Jane’s coldness hardens him. The Fields model patient, prayerful love, but Jane embraces pride and the “cordial” urged by her meddling neighbor Mrs. Swinden, neglects the children’s schooling, and doses her baby; Matthew, hurt yet employed, sends money but stays away until Mrs. Oakland unexpectedly meets him at a station and urges him to return. A stationer’s grim tale of a mother ruined by drink and a policeman’s news that Mrs. Swinden’s husband has been killed on the railway deepen the warnings, while the scene shifts to another household preparing to welcome an elderly guest, signaling new threads that will connect to the central theme of homes either made or marred.