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. |
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... independent of her own wishes and will', as John Stuart Mill put it in his famous declaration. Under coverture, the husband assumed possession of all his wife's personal property, and the management of her real property. No longer a ...
... independent of her own wishes and will', as John Stuart Mill put it in his famous declaration. Under coverture, the husband assumed possession of all his wife's personal property, and the management of her real property. No longer a ...
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... independently either protected by equity settlements or as single women with common-law property rights. Further, as Elizabeth Ermarth observes, the 'centrality of marriage in Victorian social novels is striking; even more striking is ...
... independently either protected by equity settlements or as single women with common-law property rights. Further, as Elizabeth Ermarth observes, the 'centrality of marriage in Victorian social novels is striking; even more striking is ...
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... independent roles, and rarely argued for the rights of married women to enter the professions. Public life was an alternative vocation, but 'marriage and motherhood were still regarded as women's primary roles' (Maynard, 1989, p.230) ...
... independent roles, and rarely argued for the rights of married women to enter the professions. Public life was an alternative vocation, but 'marriage and motherhood were still regarded as women's primary roles' (Maynard, 1989, p.230) ...
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... independent women, and the examples repeatedly used by feminists during the property debates, were represented in those debates not as active independent agents but as either 'redundant' women, devalued by over-supply, or as socially ...
... independent women, and the examples repeatedly used by feminists during the property debates, were represented in those debates not as active independent agents but as either 'redundant' women, devalued by over-supply, or as socially ...
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... independent woman outside marriage, is described in the novels that follow as a series of struggles over the meaning of a woman's property. On the one hand, ownership sets the heroine outside the conventional operations of the marriage ...
... independent woman outside marriage, is described in the novels that follow as a series of struggles over the meaning of a woman's property. On the one hand, ownership sets the heroine outside the conventional operations of the marriage ...
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