Widowed Worlds & Women Living Alone in Austen & the long 18th century

John Everett Millais, Irish Melodies

Westron winde, when will thou blow,
The smalle raine downe can raine.
Christ if my love were in my armes,
And I in my bed againe.
    Medieval English Lyric

Dear friends and readers,

I expect it will come as no surprise to my readers I’ve been thinking about, reading and making notes about, and have written a panel and paper proposal for the coming EC/ASECS in Delaware (now accepted) about the above linked topics. What I wrote comes out of years’ of reading Austen and 18th century texts and pictures, my recent experience and a few books and articles recently read. This blog is about this recent reading and two proposals.

I would have preferred to begin with the book I took most extensive notes on — though it was a disappointment because it relied heavily on documentary evidence, and as B-B says, until recently the history of widowhood has been badly served, distorted by what has been written down: Être Veuve sous l’ancien régime [To be a widow in the ancien regime] by Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie. But before that I feel I have to suggest why the documentary record ignores dominant realities: it’s heavily due to the intense hostility on the part of the majority of people towards a woman living alone independently, having power and (until recently) usually old. So instead I’ll present my panel proposal which partly explicates this hostility.

Kate Winslett as Mildred Pierce (one phase of her life as widow)

The Anomaly: the single unmarried adult woman living alone, spinsters, divorced and widowed women

According to Mrs. Peachum, “The comfortable estate of widowhood, is the only hope that keeps up a wife’s spirits.” According to Chudleigh’s “To the Ladies,” the most frequently reprinted poem of the period, the only way to know any pleasure or liberty is to “Shun that wretched state,” i.e., marriage. But notwithstanding the misogynistic infamous type of the frustrated unhappy lascivious or power-hungry widow and a real woman’s in ability to own property until she is widowed (though her jointure), and some well-known examples of (usually independently) wealthy women who throve (Mary Delany, Lady Granville; Hester Thrale Piozzi); like other women of the era who might end up or try living on their own without a man of their class and type (when respectable kin), modern studies suggest spinsters (lesbian or not), separated and divorced and widowed women had a hard time of it financially, socially and psychologically. I call for papers exploring and discussing depictions in art and literature and/or the realities of life for a women from the long 18th and into the early 19th century (if that’s of interest) who lived on her own or with another woman or women. Salonnières, bluestockings, businesswomen, the down and out and vengeful (as seen from the fictional Moll Flanders and Roxana, “’Tis better to whore than to starve,” to Mrs Dashwood’s lack of adequate resources to Madame de Merteuil’s rage), women who never quite recovered and made the experience of marriage central to their writing (i.e., Francoise de Graffigny, a victim of legal violent abuse when a wife), women without families to take them in, governesses, companions without vows, housekeepers, agricultural and city- and sex-workers – how were they depicted and how did they depict themselves, how did they survive, create viable existences for themselves, find pleasure, when they chose not to re-marry or marry in the first place.

Here then Être Veuve sous l’ancien regime by Scarlett Beauvalet-Boutouyrie. The fundamental assumption of many of the quotable quotes famous still is that marriage is an unhappy business and when expressed from the male point of view (as it usually is) is that a second marriage is (Johnson’s famous quip) “the triumph of hope over experience.”

Fashion plate for supposed wealthy widow

Preface – Jean Pierre Bardet

B-B asks if this sizable group of women constitutes a coherent social group with determined shared traits – they are mentioned as widows and orphans with connotations of vulnerability and poverty but do not they have diverse circumstances? BB analyses the literary representations as reflecting views of the era (problem of numbers, problem of subjectivity) and finds a mostly unacknowledged distinct group.

she suggests there are three ways of seeing this group of widows: 1) that of the clerics: a dangerous state, risks of sinking into sensuality (!), rumor hurting her and greed attacking her or her being caught up by. So she is pressured to become chaste, devoted to charity, submitting to religious order. At bottom this is hostile to the widow, to her remarrying; 2) that of secular literature: does not contradict the above, just another direction with the same “risks” in mind demands that she act with dignity, fear of her frivolousness, her duty to remarry dramatized; 3) that of her memoirs – there must be a time of affliction, but readers dreads the inconsolable widow; they must put themselves in agreeable circles; they are heavily closely controlled: think of the effect of the demand for mourning clothes. (I add that poetry is one place where some liberty can be found and the greatest poetry by women in the Renaissance is often that of the grieving widow or woman living alone).

These groupings importantly, do not include some realities at all: the education of the children she was typically left with – so we see immediately how the published typology presents a false sociology, a sociology badly served and predetermined by the documents which erase central realities.

In 20th century living longer has produced more widows; in the past marriage did not last that long (mortality heavy; fragility of coupling real and for women without social protections. Yes she did have legal rights, more autonomous than other married women; she had arrangements over her dowry and portion (jointure) – but very often the family did not permit her to dispose of these things freely at all – (as I recall even get her hands on the money); but some Parisian contracts show widow’s social and customary positions improved in the long 18th century – when they were rentiers; they carried on the husband’s economic activity – the choice of a religious life was rare (8). Widows with means in minority.

Most poor but hard to delimit- problem of survival crucial – taken into Parisian alms-houses but they were not old all the time, didn’t say, so what became of them and their children?

B-B did not investigate the remarriage state, a great number did not remarry (as opposed to widowers), what they say of themselves now confirms but then contests usual characterizations: in another book will be history of poor widows, remarriage, and solitude.

BB: her Introduction

Recent studies want to escape masculine lens, the axis of domination or subordination/oppression; Ida Blom little done on widows because women researched in roles as mothers; they also are often inactive and feminists don’t want that annihilation – old women past menopause so no one interested – she says first widowhood not synonymous with older years as it is today; women have numerous family, money of some kind to handle or wholly w/o resources – why have historians ignored it when he shows changes in laws over time – is she always pathetic, alone, in black, isolated; or someone whose very existence disquiets, at risk – a woman living alone outside of marriage and religion (15). So you get these codes of comportment to deal with these myths – she proposes to see what is common in these ideas and the realities.

She needs numbers: when on average was a woman widowed, how many children did she have, what strategies did she use against the rupture the death caused – early death so common, unions brief often – much prepared in law and custom for this expectation of death; upon widowhood women became responsible for their actions
How to organize a life alone. First there is no wandering widow – she does use documents she has from Paris, contracts of marriage – favorable cases and isolated widows; some way of navigating between widows with children, affairs, and the one struggling to survive – there were some institutions which provided a little assistance – history of widowhood is a social history – how death leads to solitude and mobilizes energies of widows confronted with their future

The Mythic Figure

Chapter 1. Women written about as such by men, a being who fascinates and frightens; aim to establish norms of conduct and confine her in them (21); she’s given virtues like sweetness, pity, docility; others around her role as mother. They want to contain the widow who has autonomy (and has had sex), put her back under “tutelle”

1. Make them choose the church and charity; comes as part of advice to married women; the work of Francois de Sales who gives a whole chapter to this; God must have wanted this; at risk of seduction when alone: she is to consecrate life to family and children; pray, practice good works

2. Second marriage tolerated but not wished for (p 38) – solitude again a danger, 39; you are told to refind your husband in God

Chapter 2: she writes a series of biographies of holy women; quite a number (56) – but these represent a small minority but one there are many documents on. (To me this was a waste of paper.)

Chapter 3: we meet the independent woman: through the lens of different sources we may decode a system of values and representations (p 101): beyond arranged marriages and validation or condemnation of love romance, stories tell of intrigue, how marriages happen, a multiplication of obstacles – all witness the desire for liberty of choice; intrigues and rebounds. It’s elite texts addressing elite people – what function and what category does someone belong to. Widowhood presented as temporary; will remarry.

What are the dominant traits we find in stage comedy? — most often presented as young, w/o children, with money – little consideration given to older woman.

First she must dress as a widow (for prescribed time); the widow a la mode (La Veuve a la mode), Duneau de Visee uncovers hypocrisies to show us what is funny and what pathetic. Other women characters in arranged marriage glad the man is dead and want to seize money and papers – so we get a theme of false affliction – the mourning a short moment, sometimes just the result of convention (107). Women who sacrifice happiness for children regarded as rare (107). In Le Paysan parvenu, the widow does not know how to take care of her money and she ends having to retire to a convent, p 108. Voltaire’s tale insists women are consolable.

For women, widowhood is a means of acquiring liberty (109): “Vous etes veuve et vous ne dependez que de vous:” Celimene in Le Misanthrope by Moliere – another theme now she can choose someone she likes: La Mere coquette (110): Madame de Merteuil quoted, p 111 as not wanting anyone over her actions. Those presented as greedy and ambitious are not pardoned (p. 117) (She has done a survey of French plays.)

In the novel we find widows who love and want to find happiness ( p 121); she does not marry for money now, she seeks sincere love and “le bonheur”. Diderot writes a novel where a widow genuinely longs for sincere love but is betrayed after her marriage (p 122). In a book of 18th century novels a number of stories of widows remarrying who seek sincere love and are betrayed, hurt in various ways, one dies. Madame Riccoboni, Juliette Catesby: arranged marriage, widowed at 18, now at 20, determined to marry for love but he leaves her to marry another, when he is widowed at first she will not forgive and then she does: lesson, women must accept men are unfaithful

Diderot: “Cette femme avoit ete si malheureuse avec un premier mari, qu’elle aurait mieux aime s’exposer a toutes sorts de malheurs qu’au danger d’un second mariage” (p 124) (from Jacques le fataliste)

Some of these stories are quite poignant: one woman surmonts all the mockery preferring to have a lover to a husband – a lover no one knows of – he wearies of her and she wants revenge but he is pardoned by his wife so she is left “seule et trahie” (p 124)

Is love in remarriage impossible? Colle, La Veuve, a Madame Durval was miserable in forced marriage, cannot get herself to remarry even if she loves man; she cannot believe love can survive a union in which she becomes a servant once again; she does marry him when he loses all his money p 125; another story a woman who had suffered much in insists on marrying someone who is a misalliance; it turns out terribly.

“La veuve, rarement decrite common une victime, attire peu la commiseration” (p 126). In literature presented in marriage plot (because anything else disquiets), it’s acceptable to be young in love not old and greedy, p 127. Sources cannot conceive of a woman who prefers to be alone. Neither comedy nor novels show a woman alone and independent; only a conditional liberty and she is presented as feeble and dependent. No matter what she does she’s criticized: stay home alone, morbid and risks losing her goods. They want the widow self-contained, p 128.

Madame de Sevigne does not approve but describes Mme de Vaubrun’s grief, p 128-29; some go into convulsions, p 130; a century before Madame Campan suspects falseness when dauphine grieves too much; there are some rituals especially in rural areas allowing for strong grief expression p 132

That ritual mourning clothes a social convention, not always black; tells about rank; idea of black, no jewels is to symbolize chastity, purity, modesty; time requires varies with who you are, who died … said to turn into a fashionable habit, p 138.

Again BB comes back to how Sevigne does not credit excessive grief; that she had opportunities but choose not to remarry, p 139; sexuality a weakness; widows obtain their liberty, long ; long marriage and love are incompatible; how a niece longed to be a widow and rejoices at how much she now has, p 140; she writes of a group of widows: her social life with other widows essential part of her life; none of her friends remarried. Many axioms in period follow suit: St Evremond: “La plus grande douceur qu’on trouve au mariage/Ne vient que de l’espoir qu’on concoit du veuvage” (a Mrs Peachum sentiment, p 141)

B-B reprints a typical poem of the era, one which shows women get over it; and how they are to put themselves at the service of God & families.

Chapter 4: widowhood, the demographic reality

Death omnipresent so unions brief – yet more than 1/3 of couples in 18th century France were married for more than 30 years; people moved about so hard to get firm statistics –in Normandy 18.7 years a mean (1650-79), 23.3 (1700-49) – a gradual increase over the long century; to marry early or to marry late ends up similar statistics; more men die even with mortality of women in childbirth; younger women have more young children (well duh). Moving about again gets in way of figures for women remarrying or remaining widows, p 164; older widow less likely to remarry

How do they organize their household? – she discusses them these ways: do they live in solitude or with amiable families and friends. There is some information: we can now where heads of households are widows, 17 to 15% – living with them how old are they? Who are servants? Who relatives or friends? Pp 168-72 – in one place less than 10% of places have 5 people – not common to live all alone, p 173; sometimes it’s women with children. Towards end of period structures of families evolving more to modern individualist model – -and it remains hard to generalize if widows are a solitary species or living in midst of others

Chapter 5: About Laws seen as protecting and constraining women; the way married women are treated influences the way widows are in custom. Whole idea is women are not capable of fending for themselves in areas like law; woman considered a person incapable; while married, all laws give husband control over everything.

Now widows do get a re-found capacity: but laws and customs at the same time set up so that her inheritance does not leave the family she married into or was from; problem if you marry a widow. You marry the debts from the previous marriage; she is supposed to be accorded a dowry which enables her to carry on with the status of her husband. And the widow and family went to court over these things.

Chapter 6: the woman in black gets a conditional liberty? Rules and customs about how long she must wear mourning, she must be provided with money for it – all modes of control; she could lose her dowry if she did not behave according to codes of respectabilty; punishment often inflexible; for some conditons for remarriage

Chapters 7 and 8: ways they were allowed to exercise responsibility, places the state or societies tried to help indigent. Full of numbers.

Conclusion: the favorite image of a woman without children is unreal, nor are they sad religious women or frivolous salacious fools, but caught up in milieu of family life (this is what we see in Austen except for Mrs Smith).

So why did these hostile or repressive images emerge? There are societies where they don’t. – she puts it down to fear of the autonomous woman – in societies where some autonomy is allowed such images emerge.

A further worthwhile essay: Lionel Kesztenbaum on The Decline of Life. Old Age in Eighteenth-Century England by Susannah Ottaway, in Population (French Edition), Vol. 60, No. 5/6 (Sep. – Dec., 2005), pp. 858-862. 10 superb pages in French. He says that the aging poor older couple where both lived did do better, but when the man died especially the widow was in great trouble. Contrary to what might be thought, being old was not thought an excuse for giving someone help or alms until the later 19th century. It’s not true that the aged were more respected in the century previous to ours. If you were rich and if your children were good to you you would fare well — but class, status, money trumped all and the old were really left to starve or die if they had not “earned” some right to a pittance say as a servant. Kesztenbaum says evidence shows that even in the 18th century all these elder people insofar as they left records desperately tried to maintain their independence.

There are many many more images of widows in 19th century illustration and painting than in the 18th or 20th century, and a sizable percentage contain children. A sentimental type:

Benjamin Kennington, The Widow

Here we have the woman embedded in her family, but she is clearly well-to-do, James-Jacques Tissot images are today often used as cover illustrations for Trollope novels:

And how do Austen’s writings fit in here: I’ve blogged most recently about widows and widowers in Austen; on “previously married woman”,, how the treatment of widows today resembles the treatment of the disabled, but not on how women living alone in many modern communities (let alone traditional ones) are still treated as an oddity, an anomaly, there she is with her cat. See Jenny Diski (“However I smell”), LRB, 8 May 2014:

there is a special dungeon for women alone, mad old bats, pathetic creatures talking to themselves and their cats, waiting out their lives …

With Être Veuve, and the other scholarly texts I cited elsewhere, I have now looked enough in the English texts to say that Austen is unusual for the variety and lack of stereotyping found. Vastly superior to the era’s drama in English — which by the way whose misogynistic and snarky strains I don’t like at all at all. But I don’t know enough about the French — the French have deep psychological and philosophical currents, especially the memoirs — which Austen apparently read.

Jemma Jones as Mrs Dashwood, pushed out of her house (1995 S&S)

Widowed worlds in Austen’s fiction and letters

Jane Austen’s writing is replete in widows, and not a few widowers too. This demographic in the semi-realistic fiction of the 18th century is not uncommon; what is uncommon is she presents widows and widowers in all their economic, social, and even psychological variety. In most fiction of the long 18th century the author presents only a few narrow stereotypes whose characteristics work to stigmatize the character hostilely, and, except when seen from afar, the author imagines these within a narrow band of the gentry class. Austen’s widows cover a spectrum from the wealthiest and highest status to impoverishment and near unacceptability. We will see how aware she is of central aspects of widowhood, sees widowed people as part of a distinct group, uses aspects of the condition in her stories, and without writing sentimentally, delves into their inner lives of memory. In all this she
anticipates developments in 19th century fiction and 20th and 21st century costume dramas.

In the texts I’ve read thus far (and that includes women playwrights, like Elizabeth Cooper in her The Rival Widows; or the Fair Libertine) and the texts about texts, there are usually only a couple of stereotypes and very often the development of the character has little to do with her or him being a widow per se — the being the widow is just part of what helps stigmatize the person. If you think about all Austen’s widows she does continually taken into account a full economic status and an attitude of mind as part of the condition. Indeed if you include her letters one could argue that she certainly singles out women living alone, then older women and widows as a group.

One problem in 18th century for widowed people, especially women (who fare badly as most were poor) is to be recognized as a legitimate group with group needs. Austen is coming near that almost explicitly in Persuasion. she will not give us the grief-striken interior life — she has Mrs Norris mouth that as cant but I think there is room enough to feel it — in Mrs Dashwood, Mrs Smith, probably Mrs Blake from The Watsons.

21st century image, but not by a woman

Ellen