“And because it is not the lady’s wish that these young women should be shut out from the world after they have repented and learned to do their duty there, they will be supplied with every means, when some time shall have elapsed and their conduct shall have fully proved their earnestness and reformation, to go abroad, where in a distant country they may become the faithful wives of honest men, and live and die in piece.”
Even in this context however there is little for the prostitute to do but die or emigrate!
Leading feminists of the day however, had different views on the subject. They were as concerned with the double standards that meant that men were not subjected to the same censure as women. It also concerned them that women from lower classes had often no other means of income and prostitution was a necessity rather than a moral choice.
Josephine Butler was a campaigner for prostitute’s rights but it is interesting to note that prostitutes were never asked to speak or asked for their opinions. This would seem again to be again the middle-class simply knowing “what’s best” for the lower classes.
“Even in lands where a high degree of morality and attachment to domestic life prevails, the measure of the moral strictness of the people is too often the bitterness of their treatment of the erring woman, and of her alone. Some will tell me that this is the inevitable rule, and that the sternest possible reprobation of the female sinner, as being the most deeply culpable, has marked every age and all teaching in which the moral standard was high.”
This obsession with the virtuous women was an ideal, which pervaded throughout Victorian Britain. The ‘angel in the house’ became a well-known description for the expected role of the woman in. Women not fitting this role were seen as morally corrupt, sinners to be redeemed. The dyadic model set up for men and women was one where the woman was seen as a nurturer and the male as the hunter.
In the later half of the period women were more likely to be seen as accountable and portrayed as either frigid or wanton.
“A young lady was only worth as much as her chastity and appearance of complete innocence, for women were time bombs just waiting to be set off. Once led astray, she was the fallen woman, and nothing could reconcile that till she died.”
Many writers did not accept these roles and challenged this thinking. As women in society demanded more rights and forced debate on issues that affected womankind so the female characters became stronger.
George Elliot presents in Mill on the Floss, a heroine who is frustrated by the conventions of Victorian Society. She is both intelligent and has an almost unconscious sexual will, which attracts her to Stephen Guest against her better judgement. Elliot presents her as being sexually attractive and the attraction can be seen as a thing of beauty rather than the shameful affairs in earlier Victorian novels.
“And they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking- without feeling anything but that long grave mutual gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion.”
Maggie is described physically as a “tall, dark-haired nymph” and is in direct comparison to her slight blonde cousin whom she betrays. This use of physical almost voluptuousness is common of the fallen women in Victorian novels. Tess in Tess of the D’Ubervilles is described in the same way.
“You said the other day that she was fine in figure, roundly built; had deep red lips with keen corners; dark eyelashes and brows, an immense rope of hair like a ships cable; and large eyes violety- blue- blackish.”
Victorian society had definite ideas about the idea that voluptuousness and enfeebled powers of will and reason went hand in hand. Essentially, that a sexually attractive woman is morally “loose”.
This idea that the woman is passive and almost enfeebled by her looks and her sexual desires is a prevalent theme.
In Jayne Eyre, Jayne portrayed herself as a plain self-contained woman in direct contrast to Bertha Mason who was described as “tall dark and majestic”. The connection between sexuality and morality is clear and reflects concerns about the threat of female emancipation.
In Mary Barton, both Mary and her aunt Esther were described as being very pretty and well aware of this.
Living in the centre of the slums in Manchester made it almost imperative to find a better life for them rather than submit to the grinding poverty surrounding them. Mary had seen both her young brother and mother die in poverty and was determined to use her looks to help her pull herself out of the slums.
“So with this consciousness she had early determined that her beauty should make her a lady.”
Mary believed that this fate had reached her aunt and the silence and censure that surrounded the subject meant that she was in great danger of unknowingly repeating the mistake. With little guidance, she is left defenceless and ignorant in the perils that lay in such liaisons as that with John Carson.
However the mistake that both Esther and Mary committed was loving and trusting a man from a higher social class than themselves. Aspirations in either sex in the working class, was frowned upon, but from a female it was seen as particularly unpardonable. This was seen as almost a fall into prostitution on its own. Gaskell with all her sympathies for Esther still seems to condemn her to this fate as she is spurned and ostracised by her lover and then society in general. Her looks and fine clothes although faded, are still what she clings on to. Mary however, at the trial of Jem Wilson has mentally shrugged off this persona.
“I was giddy and vain and ready to listen to any praise of my good looks”
This again is reiterating this idea prevalent in Victorian society that vanity and good looks are a disaster waiting to happen. From a religious point of view it can be comparable with the idea of Eve tempting Adam to take of the apple. Men were therefore seen as unable to control themselves and therefore blameless when confronted by a pretty and or sexy woman!
Gaskell saves Mary by giving her a second chance and allowing her to redeem herself and marry within her own social class. Jem Wilson represents the solid working class man who however still needs to emigrate to escape the disgrace of both his and Mary’s reputations.
Tess, in Tess of the D’Ubervilles, is so much more unconscious of her looks and her power over men and often seems bewildered by the attention. As with Mary she does however have aspirations beyond her class.
“though she had many partners; but ah! they did not speak so nicely as the strange young man had done.”
It is Tess unconscious sexuality and therefore purity that attracts her lovers. This is in direct contrast to Mary Barton who enjoys the flattery. However she is still guided by this strict moral code that allows her to see John Carson for what he is.
“Now sir, I tell you, if I had loved you before, I don’t think I should have loved you now you have told me you meant to ruin me.”
Her shame that he would not have married her and of her what she saw as inevitable decline into degradation and sin is acute and she spends the rest of the novel making up for this mistake. Like the majority of women in Victorian literature she is seen as the female who falls into temptation but Gaskell talks with sympathy of her life and how the temptation was severe.
Hardy in Tess takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster as we follow Tess through her emotional and sexual maturity. Her temptations and the temptations of those who desire her are portrayed with great sexual imagery.
Tess is unconsciously beautiful and Hardy has captured her sexual awakening, which is the real attraction for her lovers, Hardy and male readers (or voyeurs!).
Before Alec she was unconscious of her sexuality, pure and virginal, untutored by her mother of the pitfalls that lay ahead.
This would seem hardly possible in her upbringing in the country and here Hardy’s novel seems to be unrealistic. In Victorian England, it was common for children to be born out of wedlock and country folk were much more accepting and almost fatalistic life and loves.
Tess has risen above this life and aspires to a higher social class, as does Mary Barton. But Tess is guided by a different set of class rules and social codes. This could explain her attraction to Angel. His is a more aesthete love, that of a higher morality and almost medieval purity. Tess is much more driven by these social codes internally than external pressures. When she becomes pregnant she ostracises herself, rather than being ostracised by the country folk around her.
Her moral awareness can be seen in her repulses to Alec.
“Without the slightest warning she passionately the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face.”
She is driven by the moral and social codes of higher society and she is deeply ashamed of what has happened to her. Angel is also caught in these codes which shows in the way he struggles to accept Tess’s past. In this way Hardy mocks the double standards that are within these codes of women and men’s behaviour and it’s acceptance of one and ostracism of the other.
It is only when under intense pressure, when she feels that all hope has gone, that she yields to Alec the second time. This time she truly is the fallen woman. Alec slowly makes her believe that she is fallen and must be impure by her part in his loss of faith and his return to his former ways. In this way he makes her feel like Eve, tempting him without the conscious thought of doing so.
Tess has almost a duel personality as the dual title suggests. Physically Alec violates her, but her spirit remains pure. This spiritual side to Tess, where she can rise above herself can be seen in many plot twists. Whether asleep or refusing to consciously accept what was happening to her body, Tess submits and becomes forever seen as passive and submissive. When Angel returns to her she becomes her former pure self by his faith in her, whatever her past.
Hardy seems to be commenting on the purity of fallen women and on their ability to rise above the physical pressures they have to endure. That Tess is finally executed is again a physical violation but her spirit remains pure and essentiality innocent.
In this way Victorian writers tried to portray the plight of fallen women and the reasons why they were the way they were. In this way they hoped to change the plight of womankind and it’s perception in society. As Barbara Bodichon said plainly that,
“Letting men hold all the financial resources of the world and then refusing to admit women to any decently-paid work or professional career forced them to marry for financial support, which amounted to legal prostitution; and the 43 percent of women with no man to support them lived in poverty which led many to succumb to casual prostitution.”
In creating their often-tragic heroines, the authors tried to bring the plight of fallen women to the attention of the Victorian public. The women, often stereotypical aided the authors in conceptualising the many changes that were taking place in society in Britain. Through these characters they challenged public thinking on gender roles, men and women’s sexuality, women’s rights and the conditions that a large percentage of women had to endure to survive. Such issues and complex problems were not solved but brought into open debate by the authors and their novels.
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/History/teaching/courses/gender/prostitution.htm
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 148. Penguin.
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 149. Penguin
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p.370. Penguin
C.Dickens (1841-1865), An Appeal to Fallen Women. The Victorian Novelist (1987). Croom Helm.
Butler. J E. Social Purity, Morgan and Scott. London. Victorian Women Writers Project.
Lee E. (1997), Victorian Theories of Sex and Sexuality. The Victorian Web.
Elliot. G. (1880), The Mill on the Floss. P 561. Penguin.
Hardy T. (1891). Tess of the D’Urbervilles. P.262. Penguin.
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 23. Penguin
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 306. Penguin
Hardy T. (1891). Tess of the D’Urbervilles. P.18. Penguin.
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 129. Penguin
Hardy .T. (1891), Tess of the D’Ubervilles. p 331. Penguin.
Bodican.B. (1857), Women and Work. The Victorian Web.
References
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 148. Penguin.
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 149. Penguin
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 370. Penguin
-
Dickens. C. (1841). An Appeal to Fallen Women. The Victorian Novelist. (1987). Croom Helm.
- Butler. J.E. Social Purity, Morgan and Scott. Victorian Women Writers Project.
-
Lee E. (1997), Victorian Theories of Sex and Sexuality. The Victorian Web.
- Elliot.G. (1880), The Mill on the Floss. p 561. Penguin.
-
Hardy T. (1891). Tess of the D’Urbervilles. p 262. Penguin.
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 23. Penguin.
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 306. Penguin.
-
Hardy T. (1891). Tess of the D’Urbervilles. p 18. Penguin.
-
Gaskell.E. (1848), Mary Barton, p 129. Penguin.
-
Hardy T. (1891). Tess of the D’Urbervilles. p 331. Penguin.
-
Bodican.B. (1857), Women and Work. The Victorian Web.
Bibliography
-
Deeds Ermarth. E. (1997). The English Novel in History. Routledge.
-
Flint.K. (1987). The Victorian Novelist- Social Problems and Social Change. Croom Helm World and Word Series.
-
Gribble. J.(1983). The Lady of Shallot in the Victorian Novel. Macmillan Press.
-
Morgan. R. (1988). Women and Sexuality in the novels of Thomas Hardy. Routledge.
-
Skilton. D. (1993). The Early and Mid-Victorian Novel. Routledge.
-
Widdowson. P. (1993). Tess of the Durbervilles- Contemporary Critical Essays. Macmillan Press.
Websites
1.
2.The Victorian Women’s Writers Project.
3.The Victorian Web.