Marian's physical features, behavior, and statements on women are paradoxical. She is an unmarried spinster who has no desire to marry, but at the same time laments her powerlessness as a single woman in Victorian society. She deplores the fragility and banality of women, but adores her sister Laura. She asserts that she lacks the characteristics necessary to be a caretaker or mother, but in many ways flourishes as Laura's surrogate mother.
In no way does Marian exemplify the physical or spiritual characteristics of the ideal Victorian woman—this is a point that Collins emphasizes throughout the novel—but she is nonetheless much more of a developed and sympathetic character than her passive and beautiful foil, Laura, who does embody the Victorian ideal. Her strength as a character is precisely because of her paradoxical characteristics.
Marian frequently expresses negative views on women and womanhood, such as the first time she meets Walter:
How can you expect four women to dine together alone every day, and not quarrel? We are such fools, we can’t entertain each other at table. You see I don’t think much of my own sex, Mr. Hartright—which will you have, tea or coffee?—no woman does think much of her own sex, although few of them confess it as freely as I do.
She includes herself in the feminine category by saying, "We are such fools," but in the same breath she removes herself from it by saying "few of them confess as I do." She seems obsessed by the "inevitable female drawbacks," and frequently shares her disparaging views on women. For example, she later claims that women can't draw because "their minds are too flightly, and their eyes are too inattentive." What makes these beliefs paradoxical is that the kind of woman she so often seems to be criticizing—the ideal Victorian woman—is perfectly embodied by her sister Laura, and yet, she never critiques Laura or expresses any judgment about her traits. Her opinions on female deficiency makes the reader wonder how these two women live so well together without conflict ever arising between them.
However, Marian's views on the deficiencies of women may not be so contradictory after all. Later in the novel, it appears that Marian's issues with women are much more a matter of issues with women's position in society. Although the reader half-expects Marian to denigrate Laura after becoming acquainted with her in the First Epoch, the reader quickly comes to see that what Marian seeks to denigrate are the limitations that are forced upon her sister and the people who seek to take advantage of her.
On multiple occasions in her narrative portions or dialogue, Marian exclaims, "If I had been a man," and she imagines the power she would exercise or the rage she would express in a given moment. Marian is an appealing character because she gives the reader access to these strong emotions while proving herself capable of restraining them when it would do no good to unleash them. Possessing both feminine and masculine characteristics, as well as filling both feminine and masculine roles, Marian fascinates the reader because she does not fit into a stereotype.
Marian embodies the paradox of Victorian womanhood. It is precisely because she critiques and rallies against the feminine ideals that she is able to serve as a surrogate mother for Laura. In the form of this heroine, Collins offers his reader a strong female character who proves that it is possible to be virtuous and spirited all at once.
