Skippers' Wives at Sea by W. Clark Russell

Should owners allow captains to take their wives to sea with them? Opinions vary among master mariners on this head. Some think that a man has as much right to be taken care of at sea as ashore; that shirts, buttons, and linen want as much looking after in a ship as in a house; that captains are always the better for having their wives with them, because when in port they have an inducement to stop by the vessel and spend their evenings in the cabin, instead of roaming ashore at nightfall and bringing up in bad and perilous anchorages; and they also reason that a ship and cargo are bound to be rendered the safer by the captain's wife being on board, as the skipper is sure then to be vigilant and keep his weather-eye lifting. Of course a cynic might say that so far as regards the safety of the ship, and the inducements to the skipper to spend his evenings when in harbour aboard of her, a good deal must depend upon the lady as wife and companion. I once met a captain who told me that he questioned whether an insurance could be effected on his ship and cargo were it to be suspected that he had any intention of carrying his wife to sea with him. "We're always quarrelling," said he -- a remark that saved me from asking him more questions. But what do the wives think? Are owners' objections to their accompanying their husbands agreeable to them? It is quite possible for a woman to love a sailor without loving the sea; and though owners deserve no praise for their hard and fast rule touching captains' wives, as there is not an atom of sentimental regard for the ladies in it, I cannot but think it a good rule, as it saves many a woman from following her husband into a life to which nothing could have courted her but the sense of wifely duty.

After all, what sailor would willingly subject the woman he loves to the perils of the deep by taking her with him voyage after voyage? The farewells, it is true, are hard to say; the shot is often low in the locker, and she and the children will have a hard job to scrape through the months while father is absent: but then she is safe, there are no gales of wind to affright her, no mutinies, no collisions; the little home can never be water-logged, nor can there ever arise the need of taking to the boats and perishing of famine after a week of unspeakable anguish. There have, indeed, been many heroines among captains' wives, many brave and some truly heroical acts performed by them whilst at sea with their husbands. Nothing, for instance, in its way was ever more striking than the conduct of the wife of the captain of the _Edgar_. All the crew, with the exception of the captain and mate, were prostrated with sickness. The ship was homeward bound from Senegal, and the captain and mate had to work in the engine-room, whilst the wife steered. In this way the vessel was safely brought home, though, as was related in the newspapers at the time, seven of the crew died of the fever on the voyage. Here, perhaps, was a valuable ship saved by a captain's wife, for without her it is difficult to imagine what the other two could have done; and those skippers who think owners unjust in forcing them to go to sea _en garcon_ should quote the case of the _Edgar_ as a very strong commercial argument -- the only sort that is likely to prove successful -- in favour of their views. But, as Lord Bacon said of dancing, so may I say of such instances as this: The better the worse.