Even if during his old age Ludlow had wished to play a fully active role in public affairs, the obligations connected with his marriage would have prevented him from doing so. Maria Forbes had no interest in his political or social activities. Furthermore, though she had all the gentler qualities, she was possessed of a strong will of her own. Before her marriage she had been the centre of a large Anglo-Indian family, the members of which had sent their children home for her to look after. She was now called upon to live alone in London, with a husband who, after 1875, was away all day at the friendly society office. She had never been strong. Ludlow believed that it was because of this that she now drifted into a semi-invalid life between bed and sofa and gradually became confined to her room. Her own sex, however, are more critical of her. ‘Had she been of this age’, a great-niece writes, ‘she would have found some way of overcoming her lassitude, but mid-Victorian women were rather apt to retreat to rule. For she did rule. That bedroom was the centre to which returning nephews and nieces came to pay their court and round which the rest of the house, including Ludlow, revolved.’ Yet even if she became an invalid she had intense spiritual life of her own, being called ‘Auntie’ by members who went to and from her side.