Mistress of the House: Women of Property in the Victorian NovelThis exploration of gender and property ownership in eight important novels argues that property is a decisive undercurrent in narrative structures and modes, as well as an important gender signature in society and culture. Tim Dolin suggests that the formal development of nineteenth-century domestic fiction can only be understood in the context of changes in the theory and laws of property: indeed femininity and its representation cannot be considered separately from property relations and their reform. He presents original readings of novels in which a woman owns, acquires or loses property, focusing on exchanges between patriarchal cultural authority, the 'woman question' and narrative form, and on the place of domestic fiction in a culture in which property relations and gender relations are subject to radical review. Each chapter revolves around a representative text, but refers substantially to other material, both other novels and contemporary social, legal, political and feminist commentary. |
From inside the book
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... husband has just said, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow". Does that mean that she will henceforth have control of his money altogether, or only that he takes her into partnership?' 'Pas précisément, my dear sir. By our law it is ...
... husband has just said, "With all my worldly goods I thee endow". Does that mean that she will henceforth have control of his money altogether, or only that he takes her into partnership?' 'Pas précisément, my dear sir. By our law it is ...
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... husbands. Their legal personality was accordingly suspended. This process, known in law as coverture, conferred ... husband assumed possession of all his wife's personal property, and the management of her real property. No longer a ...
... husbands. Their legal personality was accordingly suspended. This process, known in law as coverture, conferred ... husband assumed possession of all his wife's personal property, and the management of her real property. No longer a ...
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... husbands. A married woman's property protected in equity, that is to say, was as much a form of financial dependence as a widow's income provided by trusts or life assurance policies set up by her husband.5 Few Victorian novels depict ...
... husbands. A married woman's property protected in equity, that is to say, was as much a form of financial dependence as a widow's income provided by trusts or life assurance policies set up by her husband.5 Few Victorian novels depict ...
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... husbands, as Bodichon, writing in 1857, foresaw: 'The alteration of the laws concerning married women's property will make a great difference in the public feeling as regards women working after marriage. The 60,000 women who have ...
... husbands, as Bodichon, writing in 1857, foresaw: 'The alteration of the laws concerning married women's property will make a great difference in the public feeling as regards women working after marriage. The 60,000 women who have ...
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... husband and wife were founded upon a condition of things which had existed without exception in all parts of the earth — the husband being the protector and support of the wife and the latter subordinate to and reliant upon him ... and ...
... husband and wife were founded upon a condition of things which had existed without exception in all parts of the earth — the husband being the protector and support of the wife and the latter subordinate to and reliant upon him ... and ...
Contents
Shirley | |
Cranford and its belongings | |
Villette | |
The Moonstone | |
Hardys uncovered women | |
Diana of the Crossways | |
A brief summary of the laws | |
The Caroline Norton affair | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
argues Barbara Bodichon becomes Betteredge Bretton Brontë Caroline Celt chapter character Charlotte Brontë Collins comedy comic conflict conventional coverture Cranford Cranfordians critical Crossways culture debates Diana divorce domestic earnings England English female feminine feminist figure Gaskell Gaskell's gender Gillian Beer Hardy Hardy's Helsinger Helstone heroine heroine's Hintock household husband ideology imagination independent Irish Jane Eyre Jude Jude the Obscure Jude's ladies landed landscape language live London Lucy Lucy's marriage married women's property Mary Meredith middle-class mistress Moonstone moral narrative narrator nature passion plot political possession property laws property reform provincial question Rachel readers realism Redworth relations relationship representation represents resistance rhetoric romance scene sensation novel sensationalism sexual Shirley Shirley's social social realism society space sphere story struggle suggests things Verinder Victorian fiction Victorian novel Villette voice Wessex widow wife wives woman of property women Woodlanders writing