G.H. LEWES and HIS WIFE AGNES JERVIS and MISTRESS GEORGE ELIOT - FREE THINKERS?

According to author Jenny Uglow, George and the more citified G.H. met - I must say appropriately - in a book shop in October of 1851. He was not attractive physically but honed a wit and was intellectually curious.  He had married Agnes Jervis in 1841 when he was about twenty-four.  A decade later he was considered a womanizer, a cheater, and gave Agnes a difficult time - though the couple were said to have been influenced by FREE THINKING. Was the marriage dead or was remaining married while having others romantically an ideal way of life for them?  (We must remember that this was an extremely controversial way of life at the time they lived it.)

Agnes took a lover - a married man - and had a child by this other man. G.H. stayed married and George Eliot resided with the couple for a time.  She lived openly with them.  (I sense an arrangement!)

G.H. and George traveled together, she remained childless, and as she aged was known to have a few "spiritual daughters."  Usually women young enough to have a mother her age, but I do wonder if these were lesbian relationships.  The author doesn't say...