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This article seeks to examine the degree to which officers’ wives in the late Victorian army influenced their husbands’ careers. It is set within the context of such concepts as ‘separate spheres’ and the ‘incorporation’ and ‘subordination’ of women within male-dominated institutions. As an institution, the army embraced simultaneously both aristocratic and middle-class ideals of women’s roles since military hierarchy frequently over-rode class distinctions. Yet the army has been generally neglected as a means of investigating gender/power relations in Victorian Britain. After general observations on the role of the Victorian military wife, the article provides comparative case studies of the contrasting roles of the wives of four prominent soldiers: Wolseley, Roberts, Wood and Colley. It is argued that such wives played a significant role in the army’s patronage system. In so doing, they were not confined by perceptions of separate spheres, while incorporation neither implied subordination nor constrained their ambition.