19th Century Literature and Jurisprudential Implications. Victorian Legislation on Wife-Beating and Anne Bronte's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall".

‘Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways’, was scribbled by Anne Bronte in the back of her prayer book. Anne’s state of mind can be seen further in her 1845 paper, from which she described herself of having undergone ‘unpleasant and undreamt-of-experience of human nature’ at Thorp Green, where she had been working as a governess for five years. Anne subsequently, having lived at close quarters with her brother, witnessed his degeneration and disgrace. She had become bereaved, learning she would probably never marry, nor bear the child she so desperately craved, and the Tenant of Wildfell Hall can undoubtedly be seen to demonstrate her sombre vision.

The first volume charters Gilbert’s intrigue into the mysterious Mrs Graham who had recently moved into Wildfell Hall, who earns her way as a painter. The intrigue to which is heightened when Helen’s painting of her abode, is in fact entitled ‘Fernley Manor, Cumberland’, with the being reasoning that she has ‘friends- acquaintances at least – in the world, from whom I desire my present abode to be concealed… to give a false name to the place also, in order to put them on a wrong scent’.This highlights the illegality of the situation, as it becomes clear to the reader, if not Gilbert, that she is in fact hiding from a previous husband, and has particular resonance with the plight of Caroline Norton. Furthermore it indicates the practicality to many women facing a similar situation, upon identification of their situation with Helen’s, that there is the possibility of escape. It further emphasises to the reader that there is a way to escape the male dominated positivist laws of coverture.

Demonstrative of the times, the novel does contain both explicit and implicit marital violence. Implicit violence is bestowed upon Helen. This becomes apparent during the chapter ‘The First Quarrel’, where Arthur Huntingdon, having ‘took an unusual quantity of wine’ and consequently upon being greeted by their cocker Dash, Arthur’s temper is demonstrated by his ‘[striking] of a smart blow; and the poor dog squeaked, and ran cowering back to me’. Consequently, after arising from a drunken sleep, he calls over the dog once more, when the dog refuses, Arthur, ‘[snatched] a heavy book and hurled it at his head’. Helen suggests the violence has already started when she retorts ‘by your throwing the book at him? But perhaps it was intended for me?’ Mr Huntingdon then responds, ‘No- but I see you’ve got a taste of it. Said he, looking at my hand that had also been struck, and was rather severely grazed’. From this scene it can be seen that Dash and Helen are joint recipients of Arthur’s abuse. Violence can be seen to transfer from dog and onto Helen herself, despite Huntingdon’s denial of his intention to harm Helen. However, is the abuse of Dash a metonym for Helen herself, which again chronicles the Victorian period, as the private sphere was a completely separate entity to the public vizard that was showcased outside the family home.

The fact that the cocker spaniel is the family pet, is significant, and enforces the connection between Helen and Dash. Spaniels are from tradition associated with the feminine qualities of gentleness, submission, subservience – and with a willingness to be beaten, as exemplified by the adage, “a spaniel a woman, and a walnut tree-/ The more they’re beaten, the better they still be”. This adequately portrays the position that many of the middle class Victorian gentry would associate with, and consequently demonstrates their arrogance. Later in the text, Ralph Hattersley, an acquaintance of Arthur’s, can be seen to compare his wife to a spaniel, ‘at my feet and never so much as squeaks to tell me that’s enough’.

Explicit violence can be seen in the fact that during Mr Huntingdon’s party, Ralph the husband of Milicent, grabs her ‘remorselessly crushing her slight arms in the gripe of his powerful things’ and consequently shaking her until she eventually falls. To which Milicent responds ‘Do let me alone Ralph! Remember we are not at home!’. This coincides and acts as a platform on which Anne subsequently can be seen to transcend into a discussion between Helen and Milicent into how such acts can be avoided, with Helen acting not only as an intervener for Milicent, but as an advocate for the females across the country. ‘Alas! Poor Milicent, what encouragement can I give you? – or what advice – except that it is better to make a bold stand now, though at the expense of disappointing and angering both mother and brother, and lover, than to devote your whole life, hereafter, to misery and vain regret?’. The fact that Helen is heavily suggesting that despite the law saying quite the contrary, that Milicent should act in haste in order to lose the shackles of marriage that confine her to a life of misery, resounds heavily with Lisa Surridge’s coinage as a ‘literature of resistance’. Helen is suggesting that Milicent be dismissive of the laws and consequently she must act in accordance with what she would deem morally sound, rather than abide by unjust positivist laws.  In regards to Milicent’s husband Ralph, Helen can be seen to discuss the consequences of his actions; awakening his ignorance to the fact the way he was treating his wife constitutes abuse. This could be seen in the feminist sense to be alerting the female readers, that the abuse suffered is not acceptable and is not a part of accepted marriage. Ralph having grabbed Milicent and shaking her so vigorously she was forced to bite her lip to suppress pain, Helen retorts ‘I’ll tell you, Mr Hattersley, said I, ‘She was crying from pure shame and humiliation for you; because she could not bear to see you conduct yourself so disgracefully’. This could be seen as a particularly strong level of revolt, according to Victorian laws, Ralph was merely imposing his power over his property, but Helen defies such social norms to communicate the gravity of the situation faced by wives.

Feminist encouragement to the shortcomings of the act of coverture can be seen further from Helen’s diary, from which she states that upon marriage, ‘[her] bliss is sobered, but not destroyed; [her] hopes diminished, but not departed; and [her] fears increased but not yet thoroughly confirmed’. This emphasises the position of Helen, that although she may be trapped with no legal identity she has not been completely lost and smothered by coverture, and upon this premise, acting as a springboard, provides a reasoning to disobey the law. Anne’s knowledge of the law is represented by a discussion between Helen and Mr Huntingdon, where she requests to ‘take [their] child and what remains of [her] fortune’, ‘will you let me have the child then, without the money?’ to which Mr Huntingdon rejects, even further by restricting even her attempt to leave. The inequality presented by the act, is then communicated by Helen, ‘then I must stay here, to be hated and despised – But henceforth we are husband and wife only by name’. This passage is particularly powerful as it demonstrates to the female generation that the law is inept to cover their plight and this once again could be seen to have legal implications, especially with further encouragement from John Stuart Mill, who indicated that ‘the wife is the actual bond servant of her husband: no less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so-called’.

Possibly the most famous moment in the book, revolves around Helen’s metaphorical ‘slamming of the door’ on her husband, an image that could perhaps have ‘echoed throughout the length and breadth of middle England’. However upon consultation of the text, is this a glorification adapted by feminists designed to empower their cause. ‘Without another word, I left the room, and locked myself up in my own chamber. In about half an hour, he came to the door; and first he tried the handle then he knocked’. He subsequently when ‘uncertain how to answer such a speech, turned and walked away’, this apparent act of resistance although seemingly exaggerated did however strike fear in the hearts of contemporary reviewers, who feared that with the readership of the book being those associated with the title character that it could pose a threat to middle class Victorian living. This could consequently have legal and jurisprudential claims, with positivist laws seemingly lacking in morality, preventing women rights in marriage being ignored and violated with cases such as Caroline Norton acting as a source of encouragement, for these wronged women.

Upon reading Helen’s diary it does not become clear that she would revoke the law, until the arrival of her son, Arthur. Arthur consequently alters Helen’s mindset, providing her with an even greater determination to escape the tyrannies of Mr Huntingdon, as her maternal instincts kick in, as ultimately Helen’s maternal bond is the “strongest tie of love”, whereas the paternal bond, pale in comparison, was fabricated by the law, which according to Norton, rendered the mother ‘little more than a surrogate, a prostitute even’. Consequently finding herself a slave in a loveless marriage, confined by a husband who takes great pleasure in inflicting humiliation and psychological pain as he nonchalantly digresses into stories about previous amours. The psychological sours of her marriage, can be seen worsen as these experiences seemingly compound on one another, as the marriage progresses. As a result of her maternal instincts for the protection of Arthur she consequently applies her moral vice, denying Mr Huntingdon his conjugal rights, and upon discovering his affair with Annabella, she claims the freedom to ‘do anything but offend God and [her] conscience’. Effectively dismissing the legal status of the wife in Victorian England.

Throughout the text, Helen can be seen to be acting as a heroine to the wives during the Victorian period. She contradicts the general consensus of what a wife should be, she is described as more than just the slave of the marriage. The novel constructs parallels between beaten women and animals, however Helen is dismissed by Hattersley as ultimately ‘he must have somebody that will let me have my own way in everything not like your wife, Huntingdon, she is a charming creature, but she looks as if she had a will of her own, and could play the vixen upon occasion.’ This presented an aspiration to the reader, especially those who could associate within themselves a degree of Helen’s, it allowed them to see that they do not need to simply suffer they need not be merely a slave within the home, confined by their husband’s wants and needs, although their legal status was contrary, this should not be a reason to lose personal identity and integrity. This furthers the feminist role model, as it is clear Helen will stand up to the males who ‘possess’ her.

Although jurisprudential and legal charging may be very loosely intertwined with the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, it is undoubtedly ever present. Anne’s intention to expose the misgivings of society and to tell the truth are obvious, as a reviewer in the Rambler confirms it to be ‘one of the coarsest books to which we have ever perused’, and by doing so, empowered by Dicken’s famous allusion, has blown the roof of houses and successfully revealed what actually lay within. This novel’s jurisprudential implications are probably best of understood as ‘subterranean, [providing] foundational support for the broader argument’, acting as a the baseline for the rise of the feminist movement, and bringing the possibilities and the irregularities of law, as Anne understood them to a greater number of female receivers, helping to communicate the plight of the wife, and consequently ‘playing a critical role in transforming the public perception of the female condition’. The Tenant, although not explicitly legally charged, cannot be read without reference to Blackstone’s definition of coverture, and with its obvious legal centrality in the modern time, it must have been ever more potent in the mid-nineteenth century. ‘It is a novel that spoke, and continues to speak, to issues of burning immediacy to generations of wives and mothers, and husbands to fathers, to the laws that frame their supposedly private lives and the various tyrannies it perpetuates’. Legally, it was twenty-two years after that the Married Women’s Property Act, that allowed women to take free their earnings and to inherit property, and further in the 1853 Act for the Better Prevention and Punishment of Aggravated Assaults on Women and Children to the House of Commons on 10 March, Mr Fitzroy argued that “[he] was only asking [MP’s] to extend the same protection to defenceless women, as they already extended to poodle dogs and donkeys… under the Cruelty to Animals Act”. Undoubtedly, such developments would not have occurred without the aid of novels to ignite feminism.

Bibliography

Bronte, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Penguin Books, Published 1996

Chitham, Edward, The Poems of Anne Bronte: A New Text and Commentary,         London: Macmillian, 1979

Cobbe, F,P, Wife-Torture in England, accessed online,                 e_collections/women_theorists, 1878

Perkins, Jane-Grey, Women and Marriage in the 19th Century, (1989)

Poovey, Mary. Uneven Developments: The Ideological Work of Gender in Mid-         Victorian England, London : Virago, 1989

Surridge, Lisa, Bleak Houses: Marital Violence in Victorian Fiction, Athens: Ohio         University Press, 2005

Ward, Ian, The Case of Helen Huntingdon, Criticism, p151-182, (2008)

Ward, Ian, On Literary Jurisprudence, Journal of Law and Interdisciplinary         Studies, Perspectives (2011)

Yalom, Marilyn, A History of the Wife, (2002)

---