How to Create the Perfect Wife by Wendy Moore

upon their Rationality”—and satisfy his physical urges elsewhere. As Day put it, “if the whole female Sex cannot furnish one single rational Woman, I must make use of them in that Manner for which alone Nature has perhaps intended.”
    Yet there was a third way. And in his highly revealing letter to Bicknell, Day first unfolded his startling plan to create the perfect wife. Speaking of Margaret, Day wrote: “This Lady was brought up in the midst of the World; early introduc’d to its Customs, attach’d to its Follys; she is disgusted, or believes herself so; yet in all Probability there are some Prejudices which stick so deep as never to be eradicated.” Since it seemed,therefore, impossible to bend a woman brought up within polite society to fit the required role, he now proposed to “try another Experiment” and groom a likely young girl for the task.
    That this was not just a rhetorical argument or a flight of fancy, Day made plain. “There is a little Girl of about thirteen, upon whose Mind I shall have it in my Power to make the above mention’d Experiment,” he revealed to Bicknell. “Her Understanding is naturally good I believe, her Temper remarkably tender & affectionate; she is yet innocent, &unprejudic’d; she has seen nothing of the World, & is unattach’d to it.” Precisely who this girl was, who was so detached from the outside world, and how Day believed he possessed such power over her fate, he did not vouchsafe.
    Thinking through the practicalities of his scheme, Day asked Bicknell whether he thought it might be possible “to prevent the Impressions of Prejudice & Folly in a Mind like this?” He added: “Will it be possible to fortify it in such a Manner, that the Pleasures of the World will make no Impressions upon it, because they are irrational.” And crucially he wanted to know: “Will it be impossible entirely to exclude the Idea of Love,” since “Love I am firmly convinc’d is the Effect of Prejudice & Imagination; a rational Mind is incapable of it, at least in any great Degree.” Evidently Day desired Bicknell’s opinion not just as a man of the world but as a man of law, for he pressed: “Is my scheme practicable? If practicable by what Means?” Frustrated and impatient, he demanded an answer by the time he returned to England.
    Finally, on the last sheet of his eleven-page letter, Day asked Bicknell to perform two mysterious tasks before his return to London. For the first of these “Commissions” he wanted Bicknell to visit his saddler, in Holborn, and arrange for “the Saddle & proper Appendages” to be sent to his home at Barehill. This was evidently a contraption he had already ordered—probably a pillion saddle to enable him to bear away his young girl in the manner of a medieval knight. The second request was to call on Day’s tailor, also in Holborn, and order two new suits to be made and sent to Barehill. According to Day’s precise instructions these were: “One a Green with light Gold Embroidery, about the Button Holes, as light as possible; the other a plain white or lightish colour’d Suit, Coat, Waistcoat & Breeches, & also an embroider’d Waistcoat adapted to them, as free from tawdriness, & Frippery as possible.”
    Given Day’s scorn for new clothes of any description, especially with such dandified details as embroidery, this was quite an astonishing mission, as Day himself acknowledged. “You are surpriz’d at this, but I do assure you I have no Reason for having laced cloaths, but to convince myself, & other People I have [reasons] which make me wear plain ones.” Whether this order was a last-ditch attempt to impress Margaret or a calculated move to impress figures in authority over his teenage nymph, Day did not reveal.
    Naturally Day divulged nothing of his bizarre scheme to train a teenage bride to Margaret, or indeed to her brother. When Margaret suddenly decided to hedge her bets and send Day home with an agreement to marry each