Man and Wife was Wilkie Collins' ninth published vel. It is the second of his vels (after No Name) in which social questions provide the main impetus of the plot. Collins increasingly used his vels to explore social abuses, which according to critics tends to detract from their qualities as fiction. The social issue which drives the plot is the state of Scots marriage law; at the time the vel was written, any couple who were legally entitled to marry and who asserted that they were married before witnesses, or in writing, were regarded in Scotland as being married in law.