This thesis has researched the representation of the late-eighteenth-century ideal of femininity in the early novels of Frances Burney by observing whether Camilla, Cecilia, and Evelina abide by or transgress the governmental laws and social behaviour that determined the heroines’ virtuousness as prospective wives. The extent to which the female characters ascribe to their gendered social role has been assessed by contemplating the three young women’s responses to the legal regulations regarding marriage and property, as well as to the rules of social decorum; both of which serve to secure social order within Britain’s socio-economic structures. Through the study of how women in the novels display their sense of propriety in a variety of contexts, and by appraising whether they comply with the legal regulations on the martial ceremonies in their respective marriage plots, I have concluded that, in accordance with my preliminary research statement, the female characters in Burney’s early narratives are judged by their counterparts based on whether they succeed in conforming to this emerging ideal of femininity. Furthermore, this conclusion substantiates that there is a clear connection between law, social decorum, and ethics both in Burney’s fiction, as well as in Britain’s socio-cultural panorama in which her writing is contextualized.
In all three of Burney’s novels, the late-eighteenth-century paradigm of femininity rests upon standards defined by the ideals of chastity and motherhood. It is the extent to which the female characters conform to these two fundamental principles that situate them in an advantageous position as prospective wives within the competitive dynamics of the marriage market. Through these subtleties regarding gender roles that are rendered in the novels’ marriage plots, Burney presents the reader with a society that is orchestrated around a set of unyielding codes of conduct that ought to mold one’s moral and public character. Nonetheless, by depicting how Camilla, Cecilia, and Evelina struggle to
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convey their emotional impulses with the ‘natural’ attributes assigned to their sex, the narratives suggest that the parameters that define the eighteenth-century feminine standards are, in fact, deviously estranged from the so-called ‘natural’ principles that (presumably) should define them. Concurrently, Burney situates her heroines in a hostile socio-cultural panorama in which gender roles are artificially crafted to align with the interests of the rising middle classes and Britain’s patriarchal milieu.
The financial interests that lie at the core of circumscribing women within the needs of Britain’s male-dominated society are also elucidated in Camilla, Cecilia and Evelina by depicting how the heroines’ financial status relies on the
inheritance patterns of their respective families. The complex situation that surrounds the search for a husband is further aggravated by the legal restrictions regarding parental consent over minors which were implemented with the enactment of the Marriage Act.
The role of the parental figures not only becomes detrimental to consolidating the unions between the couples but also serves to represent the upgrowing tensions between the aristocratic and bourgeois mindset; while the former fails to adapt to the new cultural standards regarding marriage and decorum, the latter embraces these social changes to consolidate its power within the nation’s fluctuating dynamics.
Burney’s female characters’ difficulties in conforming to their assigned role within British society ultimately leads them to consider engaging in clandestine unions, violating fundamental clauses of Hardwick’s Act. By revealing the aftermath of these incongruous unions, Burney not only exposes the economic and personal consequences that arise from violating the law but also seems to warn the reader about subduing the temptation of placing emotion over sensibility. The consequence of infringing the law is further reinforced in the narratives by depicting how Mortimer’s, Bellamy’s, and Sir Belmond’s disregard for the legal system manifests itself in the disdain that they also
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show for the rules of etiquette, as the characters’ violent and impulsive behavior discloses their ungentlemanlike character— which is certainly an undesirable attribute to look for in a husband. This notion of violence displayed by men on women— both outside and inside marriage —altogether with the heroines’ incapability to converge their intimate emotional needs with the social duties that frame their social consciousness eventually culminates in a state of madness or paralysis that alienates the heroines from their very sense of identity. Thus, the narratives appear to pinpoint the flaws of a system that circumscribes women within a paradigm of ideal femininity, which is not only impossible to attain but is also unsupported by the real forms of interaction between men and women.
Although women in Burney’s fictional world finally succeed in overcoming the disruption of their personal and social consciousness, the meaning that backsides the novels’ endings remains ambiguous, as by re-locating her heroines within the structures of the domestic space through marriage, Burney seems to hint at the young women’s impossibility to escape from the role assigned to their gender. Along with the conclusions drawn from this research, it can be stated that Burney’s early literary works, by both ascribing to the regulations of the system as well as tracing its legal and social blunders, rather than positioning themselves in favour or against the legal and social changes brought about by the emerging ideology of femininity, present a nuanced representation of being a woman in the late-eighteenth century; a woman whose sexual and social identity depends on embracing those duties that made up the shape and texture of the experience of her existence: a prospect that was just as distressing as it was real.
On that basis, and drawing on Straub’s and Zonitch’s psychological reading of the female characters in Burney’s fiction, a suggestion for future research would be to examine in greater depth the relationship between the limitations of propriety imposed on women and the representation of mental diseases associated with anxiety that feature in
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late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century literature, such as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740). This would allow us, as twenty-first-century readers, to engage with the impact that social etiquette has in stressing the divided state between individual and collective consciousness, which Burney already critically assesses in her complex yet beguiling literary compositions.
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Appendices
Appendix A
Appendix A. Crude first marriage rate (marriages per 1,000 persons 15-34) Wrigley and Schofield. Population History of England, fig 10.11.
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