Various suggestions have been made, including revulsion at either her pubic hair, or menstrual blood. On the contrary, there were certain circumstances in her person which completely checked it." The reason for Ruskin's disgust with "circumstances in her person" is unknown. But though her face was beautiful, her person was not formed to excite passion. Ruskin confirmed this in his statement to his lawyer during the annulment proceedings: "It may be thought strange that I could abstain from a woman who to most people was so attractive. that he had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person the first evening. He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason. Another reason involved his apparent disgust with some aspect of her body. Gray and Ruskin had agreed upon abstaining from sex for five years to allow Ruskin to focus on his studies. Ruskin had persistently put off consummating the marriage. When she met John Everett Millais five years later, she was still a virgin. Her brother, among others, later said that Ruskin was deliberately encouraging the friendship in order to compromise her, as an excuse to separate. One of the troops, Lieutenant Charles Paulizza, made friends with Effie, apparently with no objection from Ruskin. In particular, he made a point of drawing the Ca' d'Oro and the Palazzo Ducale (Doge's Palace), because he feared they would soon be destroyed by the occupying Austrian troops. For Effie, Venice provided an opportunity to socialise while Ruskin was engaged in solitary studies. Įffie and Ruskin's different personalities were thrown into sharp relief by their contrasting priorities. This caused her to develop a severe phobia of the place, keeping her from attending her son's wedding to Effie. In 1817, Ruskin's mother, Margaret, during her engagement to Ruskin's father, had stayed at Bowerswell and was witness to three tragic deaths within its walls in quick succession (Ruskin's grandmother, grandfather, and newborn cousin). It had, coincidentally, previously been the home of Ruskin's paternal grandparents. While in Perth, Scotland, they lived at Bowerswell, the Gray family home, and site of their wedding.
During their honeymoon, they travelled to Venice, where Ruskin was doing research for his book The Stones of Venice. She ended up marrying Ruskin, after an initially unsteady courtship, when she was 19 years old on 10 April 1848.
Gray's family knew Ruskin's father and encouraged a match between the two when she had matured. John Ruskin wrote the fantasy novel The King of the Golden River for Gray in 1841, when she was 12 and he was 21. Albumen print photograph by Lewis Carroll from 21 July 1865 depicting Effie Gray, John Everett Millais, and their daughters Effie and Mary at 7 Cromwell Place, signed "Effie C.
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