The Female Sphere and the State

The literature of the Romantic Era emerged within a social and political hotbed fraught with contradictions (English Literature; Dalton, 262).  This volatile epoch featured the appearance of many arguably feminist sentiments as well as the rise of the doctrine of separate spheres. Within the writing of the period we witness these spheres collide, rendering female gender roles subject to experimentation. Woman experienced a push towards a life domesticity coupled with the rhetoric of female subordination that existed in tension with gender counter-ideology and implications of more subtle forms of power. Romantic authors address many resulting questions and examined multiple scenarios; what is a female’s role in society, what is her relationship to the state and what kind of power does she hold?  What happens when the private and public spheres overlap or when a woman’s roles and duties conflict?  Their writings imply that even in more subordinate social positions woman purportedly hold the potential to push the boundaries of their spheres, to disrupt society and its norms and to find a way to exert power.  We see the same sort of pressures and tensions at play even in at the highest female positions of power in society upon the royal woman who conceptually embody the state.  While Romantic authors and the women of the texts engage in a certain amount of gender exploration, argumentation and experimentation, they seem to fail to fully exceed the domestic ideal of feminine sphere, and doing so is posed as dangerous to the state.  Domestic Ideology serves as a constant pressure and much of the time female characters are conforming to established notions of their gender even when they seem to be rebelling. 

The political atmosphere of the Romantic period provided woman with more opportunities for public involvement.  As Alex mentions in his post, British women played an active role in the antislavery movement, joining anti-slavery societies, petitioning government, boycotting sugar and condemning slavery in writing (Slavery, 54-55).  The collapse of the French State During the revolution in particular thrust women into the forefront of political action.  According to Susan Dalton, Woman as much as men reclaimed the right to participate in political life” as “they took part in revolutionary festivals, sent deputations to deliberative bodies, swore oaths to the nations, and established their own political clubs” (261-262).  Newspaper accounts of the September massacre document female participation, stating, “The army marching from Paris exhibits a very motley group. There are almost as many women as men, many without arms, and very little provision” (Carlyle, 4; London Times, 14).  

Women taking part in the September Massacres of 1792 (The Recourse of Violence)

Women also formed the procession that marched the captive King to Versailles to be executed, as depicted in various works of art (Garrioch).  

The women of Paris march on the Palace of Versailles (Garrioch)

News of the revolution spurred English essayists like Mary Wollstonecraft to present their opinions of the ideological basis of the chaos as well as female gender roles in the process.  In “Vindication of the rights of man” Wollstonecraft presents her opinion of the proper female social role, arguing that if the landed aristocracy were not so licentious, “Women would probably then act like mothers, and the fine lady, become a rational woman, might think it necessary to superintend her family and suckle her children, in order to fulfill her part of the social compact” (23).  Her diction in the final line invokes Rousseau’s concept of a “social contract,” implying that woman’s domestic duties are responsibility to the state (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 17-23).  Later in “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” Wollstonecraft continues to place women in the domestic realm as I mentioned in a comment, for example when she asks, “Can they be expected to govern a family with judgment or take care of the poor babes whom they bring into the world?” (375).  As Katy mentions in her post, Wollstonecraft implies that men’s bodily strength makes them more fit for the public sphere, as “their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength must render them in some degree dependent on men in the various relations of life” (373).  Yet Wollstonecraft argues that women have been degraded to a slate of “slavish dependence” and she claims “the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery” since “the instruction which women have hitherto received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them insignificant objects of desire” so that “they are taken out of their sphere of duties” (375).  Again woman are said to occupy a specific sphere of duties related to civil society that is separate from a man’s – it is her responsibility to the state to be a good wife and mother in order to promote social order and raise children that will grow up to be proper citizens.  This notion embodies the concept of "Republican Motherhood," a term coined to describe a woman's domestic relationship to state in which “her political task was accomplished within the confines of her family […] as a mother” as it finally materialized in the ideology of post-revolutionary America (Kerber, 14, 17).  While Wollstonecraft desires better educational opportunities for her fellow women, she believes a woman’s civil duties lay in the domestic sphere, not in the politics on the street. 

Yet the assertions of other essayists contest this conception of the female role, including Godwin, who rejected the realm of marriage as a constraint to freedom for both genders and a hazard to the state.  First Godwin attests that individuals should refrain from living together, stating “Cohabitation is also hostile to that fortitude, which should accustom a man, in his actions, as well as in his opinions, to judge for himself, and feel competent to the discharge of his own duties” and he rejects marriage for similar reasons, stating “So long as two human beings are forbidden, by positive institution, to follow the dictates of their own mind, prejudice will be alive and vigorous” (94).  Both sorts of living arrangements, he argues, prevent individuals from thinking for themselves and acting autonomously according to their own free will.  Without marriage or cohabitation there is no possibility for separate spheres: each individual must manage the domestic duties of their own household, implying that each must support themselves as well.  In this arrangement women need not depend on or submit to their husbands or to other men.  Godwin further entangles the ideas of private and the public sphere by posing marriage as a commercial venture.  As S-Cat maintains in her post, Godwin posits the role of a wife as a commodity, and he states, “marriage, as now understood, is a monopoly, and the worst of monopolies” for “So long as I seek, by despotic and artificial means, to maintain my possession of a woman, I am guilty of the most odious selfishness. Over this imaginary prize, men watch with perpetual jealousy; and one man finds his desire, and his capacity to circumvent, as much excited, as the other is excited, to traverse his projects, and frustrate his hopes. As long as this state of society continues, philanthropy will be crossed and checked in a thousand ways, and the still augmenting stream of abuse will continue to flow” (Godwin, 94).  In the institution of marriage women are artificially cast as commodities and coveting a neighbor’s wife leads to a preoccupation that prevents productivity within society and blocks the spirit of philanthropy through selfishness.  His diction emphasizes the commercial nature of marriage, and he continues to dub it a “system of fraud” and a form of “sexual commerce” (Godwin 94-95). In rejecting the institution of marriage altogether, Godwin also rejects a female domestic role and the idea of separate spheres.   

Perhaps in response to such progressive conceptions of female gender prescriptions and societal roles, many authors of Gothic Romances took a more conservative angle, reinforcing traditional female gender stereotypes and domestic duties as necessary for participation in society.  As S-Cat asserts in her post “Ladies’ Fairy Tales,” women were often punished for deviating from the private sphere in pursuit of other goals.  In Southey’s “Mary,” the title character is castigated simply for embodying masculine qualities and physically transgressing from her proper place.  Describing the female protagonist, the speaker relates, “Her heart was a stranger to childish affright / And Mary would walk by the Abbey at night/ When the wind whistled down the dark aisle” (15, 18-20).  Instead of adopting the temperate composure of a dutiful woman who resides indoors with her guests, her courageous and unfearing nature borders on masculinity. Mary can seemingly escape these pressures under the cover of night, a dangerous prospect, for shielded from public eye and her masculine personality traits might cause her to engage in improper behavior.  Throughout the poem the title character is addressed with two epithets; either “Mary the Maid of the Inn” or Mary the Maniac.”  The first links the lady to her proper place and the other denotes a crazy woman who would have no place in society. In the tension between these dual titles lies the implication that Mary must fill one or the other.  Experimentation with one’s societal gender role can only lead to an expulsion from society.  In “Alonzo the Brave and Fair Imogene,” Imogene breaks her oath to her husband-to-be and chooses vice over Christian virtue.  Again, Imogene has not yet married her husband, but she has makes a holy vow to him that she will stay true, professing, “I swear by the Virgin” (14).  She continues, “If e'er I, by lust or by wealth led aside, Forget my Alonzo the Brave, / God grant, that to punish my falsehood and pride, / Your ghost at the marriage may sit by my side.” (16-19).  Romantic women were expected to be governed by the males in their lives and live according to Christian ideals, maintaining a humble demeanor and resisting the temptation of wealth and lust.  Yet because she is not governed by the institution of marriage she has the power to choose a more attractive mate and revoke her promise.  After breaking her oath and resisting her duties to her previous suitor, Imogene is to transform into a gruesome specter, and the poem implies that such a harsh punishment is merited in order to maintain society’s functioning.  Before leaving, Alonzo cries, "since to-morrow I go / To fight in a far distant land, / Your tears for my absence soon leaving to flow, / Some other will court you, and you will bestow / On a wealthier suitor your hand" (6-10).  The social consequences of a woman’s falsehood could be devastating in a patriarchal society where a woman could easily corrupt her husband’s bloodline by carrying an illegitimate child without his knowledge, especially since in those days there was no unarguable way of proving paternity. Also, fear of losing their future spouses or of unfaithful wives could prevent men from wanting to go off to war and protect their country.

            Other authors like Jane Austin provide more subtle challenges to the mandate of domesticity and separate spheres. Anne, the idealized heroine of “Persuasion,” is subject to the whims of her father and tends to the children, conforming to the domestic roles of a woman.  Yet the model marriage of the novel between Admiral and Mrs. Croft features a subtle blending of separate spheres.  Admiral Croft helps his wife around the house, while Mrs. Croft accompanies him to sea, even though she is often the only woman onboard.  She asserts, “Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house in England. I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man-of-war. I declare I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me, even at Kellynch Hall," (with a kind bow to Anne), "beyond what I always had in most of the ships I have lived in.”  Mrs. Croft is as comfortable in the realm of business as in the home, and both are symbolically merged in this choice of residence.  Mrs. Croft if known to take charge of her husband’s affairs, for example grabbing the reins while he is driving their cart.  Austin relates,  “But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart; and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving, which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance of their affairs.”  While Mrs. Croft performs her duties as a wife, she pushes the boundaries of her gender role and her marriage challenges the doctrine of separate spheres.

While Heman’s wife of Asdrupal seems to violently violate her proper role as caretaker, upon closer inspection her martyrdom upholds the principals of republican motherhood as her death brings glory to her country as well as shame to their conquerors in an otherwise hopeless situation.  Hemans sets the tone of the poem by describing the power and gloriousness of the setting, relating, “pyramids of fire /
In lurid splendour from her domes aspire” (3-4). The word “aspire” appears to hold a double meaning – the flames are a means of achieving a lofty aim.  The wife stands “All regal in magnificent attire” and she serves the powerful embodiment of bravery, for the speaker states, “a wild courage sits triumphant there” (25).  Somehow the wife is achieving a sort of victory and act of defiance in her actions that fit her very visible role as queen.  Hemans recognizes that Asdrupal’s wife’s actions seem like an unbelievable violation of her duties as a mother and addresses this fact in the lines “Are those her infants, with suppliant cry / cling round her, shrieking as the flames draw nigh / […] “Is that a mother’s glance? […]” (33-34, 37).  The terror and helplessness of the infants evokes sympathy in the audience and the italicization of “her” as well as the invocation of her role as a mother emphasizes how unbelievable it is that a caretaker could act this way.  Yet the poet implies that there is reason behind her seemingly crazy behavior, her as “Alone to share her children's martyrdom” as she cries to Asdrupal, “Scorned and dishonored live! - with blasted name, / The Romans triumph not to grace, but shame” (47-48).  In choosing a life of bondage Asdrupal has shamed the country while his wife’s glorious and defiant suicide reassure the reassertion of her country’s honor and the shame of her captors who she refused to submit to.  She continues,  “‘E'en now my sons shall die - and thou, their sire, /
In bondage safe, shalt yet in them expire. /
Think'st thou I love them not? - 'Twas thine to fly - /
'Tis mine with these to suffer and to die.
/ Behold their fate! - the arms that cannot save /
Have been their cradle, and shall be their grave.’ / Bright in her hand the lifted dagger gleams, /
Swift from her children's hearts the life-blood streams;” (57-62).  The wife knows her fate is sealed; even if she had not chosen to die a martyr she and her children would have been vanquished by the Roman armies, for the preface of the poem confirms “there was no way to escape.” Therefore she chooses a noble death for herself and her children and allows her offspring to perish in the most humane way possible by putting them out of their misery quickly, saving them from the pain of the flames.  Even when her duties as embodiment of the state and as a mother seem to conflict, the ideology of republican motherhood prevails.  

Though authors of the romantic era present and reveal challenges to female gender constraints, even the women of romantic texts who seem to flout their traditional roles largely fail to transcend their boundaries, and wondering to far is most often viewed as potentially harmful to society and the state.  While essayists of the period engage in bitter opposition over the ideology behind these roles, The domestic female and republican mother emerges as the dominant model in other genres such as in Gothic poetry and Jane Austin’s novel, where woman only subtly deviate from the norms and often experience great pressure to conform to them.  Even in “The Wife of Asdrupal” the ideology of the republican mother dominates, for while the wife appears to challenge her domestic role, her actions are in line with her duties to the state as well as to her family.

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