Publication: Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992. Citation Details: Page 35
Note: "The vows that Dorothy and William made to each other on their wedding day in the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Piddington were similar to the formal vows sometimes still used today. Marriage was created, said the vicar, for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Wilt thou, William, love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health...? Wilt thou, Dorothy, obey him, serve him, love, honour and keep him in sickness and in health... They both answered positively. And then they vowed to each other their love for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us do part.
They could not know what these promises would later require of them."
Note: Banns of Marriage Between William Carey & Dorothy Plackett both of this Parish were published in this church on several Sundays viz. April... & 29th, May 6th 1781 ...& Geo. Wathin...
No. 158 William Carey of this Parish and Dorothy Plackett of this Parish were Married in this Church by Banns this Tenth Day of June in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty one by me Geo. Wathin, ... This Marriage was solemnized between Us Wm CareyDorothy Plackett X her mark
In the Presence of Thos. Old Lucy Plackett X her mark [Dorothy's sister]
Note: The following thoughts give us some idea about the effect that William Carey's decision to go to India had on his wife Dorothy.
Dorothy and William had been married for twelve years and had had five children of whom only the three boys were living. The two little girls had died when toddlers. Little Lucy had died in 1792. Life was simple but good. At that time, William with the support of the Baptist Missionary Society chose to go to India to be a missionary. It was his passion in life, and he was well prepared to do it.
Dorothy did not want to go to India: she refused to go. Perhaps she did not relish the idea of giving birth on a ship with no familiar faces present to assist. It was decided that she would return to her home village of Piddington in Northamptonshire to live with her sister Kitty while she awaited the birth of her next baby. William would go alone, then return for her in a few years.
Eustace Carey, William's nephew, "suggested that Carey's intent was to return to England after he had prepared a home for his family, hoping that he might then persuade Mrs. Carey to return with him, as it might seem to her less perilous, than it was to adventure at first, when the path was untrodden."
Dorothy Carey consented to let her husband take bright and gifted eight-year-old Felix with him.
Still awaiting acceptance on a ship, William wrote to Dorothy:
"Received yours, giving me an account of your safe delivery. This is pleasant news indeed to me...Tell my dear children I love them dearly, and pray for them constantly. Felix sends his love...Be assured I love you most affectionately. Let me know my dear little child's name.--" As a postscript William writes, "My health never was so well. I believe the sea makes Felix and me both as hungry as hunters. I can eat a monstrous meat supper, and drink a couple of glasses of wine after it, without hurting me at all. Farewell."
They were not accepted on this ship, which meant that William and Dr. John Thomas had time to return to Piddington to encourage Dorothy to join them. Eventually Dorothy's resolve collapsed when Dr. Thomas told her that if she did not go with them, she might never see her husband and son again. At the very last minute Dorothy agreed to go to India. Her sister Kitty would go with her, which must have been a significant consideration and consolation.
Two months later when they left England on 13 June 1793, Dorothy had a two-month-old baby, Jabez, plus Felix (8), William (6), and Peter (3+) on board. Dorothy had named their baby Jabez because "she hath born him in sorrow."
When the Careys arrived in India, after five difficult months at sea, they had to move several times, and they had very little money. Everything--the climate, food, language, culture-- would have seemed very strange. Both Dorothy and her sister were inclined to complain: curry and rice did not agree with them, and they found Indian chapatis a poor substitute for bread; they complained that they had 'to live without many of the necessities of life.'
Eventually they settled on a remote indigo farm where Dorothy, Felix and William were ill with dysentery. [Dysentery is a severe diarrhoea with blood and pus.]
Dorothy would have felt deeply disappointed--to put it mildly-- when her sister Kitty, who had accompanied her on the five-months voyage to India to help with the children, left her after a short time in India to marry Charles Short. Kitty's presence was much more significant than as a nursemaid for the children. She was a familiar female presence, a confidant and support for Dorothy.
Without her sister's companionship and help, Dorothy, William and the boys endured a 23-day, 300-mile small boat trip to Mudnabatti. It was May, and the heat would have been extreme. They had recurrent bouts of diarrhoea. Of this trip, William's journal says, "Traveling with a family is a great hindrance to holy, spiritual meditation."
Soon afterwards in Mudnabatti in 1794 Dorothy lost five-year-old Peter to a fever. She and William had each other, and that was all--no other support. Neither did Dorothy have William's facility in picking up the local language. It was at this time that Dorothy showed signs of mental illness. No wonder!
1794 Jan. 22. Willliam writes, "Full of perplexity about temporal things....My wife has, within this day or two, relapsed into her affliction and is much worse than she was before...[It was probably either depression or paranoia. His use of relapsed suggests previous problems].
In 1795 Dorothy on the advice of Dr. Thomas had another pregnancy. (She has been in confinement by my advice.) Her son, Jonathan, was born in January 1796 in Mudnabatti. He was to be her last child.
(Page 115) "We can be fairly sure that Dorothy was in her paranoid state during this entire pregnancy [with Jonathan]. We cannot be certain whether the pregnancy was wanted or unwanted. Often physicians would recommend that a mentally ill woman have a child. This advice stemmed from the belief that mental health could be either adversely or positively influenced by childbirth."
(Page 109) "The most complete description of Dorothy's symptoms came from the pen of John Thomas, a surgeon. His medical training had most likely equipped him to observe patients carefully....This January 11, 1796, letter was sent to Andrew Fuller and was probably a planned way of informing the society in England of Dorothy's mental illness.
"Mrs. Carey has given us much trouble and vexation, and has formed such black designs and carried them so far into execution that we have been obliged to go to Heaven for help. Do you know that she has taken it into her head that C(arey) is a great whoremonger; and her jealousy burns like fire unquenchable; and this horrible idea has night and day filled her heart for about 9 or 10 months past; so that if he goes out of his door by day or night, she follows him; and declares in the most solemn manner that she has catched him with his servants, with his friends, with Mrs. Thomas, and that he is guilty every day and every night...."
Dorothy was insanely jealous. She was convinced that her husband was repeatedly unfaithful to her, and no one was able to convince her otherwise. We now call such a condition a delusional disorder or paranoid disorder...A delusional or paranoid person can be very clear and lucid in many other areas of life. Their reality distortion in the area of delusion, however, can be profound and unremitting. Dorothy was to remain locked into the delusion of her husband's unfaithfulness for the remaining twelve years of her life."
"...When the eldest boy,Felix, had left for Burma in 1807 [William, his father]... wrote to him:--"Your poor mother grew worse and worse from the time you left us, and died on the 7th December about seven o'clock in the evening. During her illness she was almost always asleep, and I suppose during the fourteen days that she lay in a severe fever she was not more than twenty-four hours awake. She was buried the next day in the missionary burying-ground."
Page 165-6: When Carey informed his sisters [of Dorothy's death], he paid a fitting tribute to his sons: "The affectionate attendance which my sons paid to her made a very deep impression upon my mind." The Carey boys had successfully maintained their love for Dorothy under the most difficult of circumstances."
Dorothy's tombstone:
Sacred to the Memory of Mrs. D. Carey, Wife of the Revd W. Carey D.D. Who departed this Life on the 8th day of Dec. 1807 Aged 51 years In this small token of conjugal Affection and filial Regard Erected by her Affectionate Husband And bereaved children. Prepare to meet thy God Amos