Could one say that novels in the 18th century were preoccupied with women? Was there an upsurge in writing about women?
The 18th-century novel saw women emerge as a common subject of focus. But what changed in the 18th century for women to suddenly be written about? This is not to say that women were never written about before; they were just not written about this extensively.
A major reason for this change was as a result of the socio-economic transformations in the 18th century. These include the institution of marriage, the deepening class divide, religion, and the growth of print culture. All these transformations affected the broad category of ‘women,’ especially their representation in the literature of the time.
A “new” woman
These novels heavily revolved around ideas of “social conduct” and “virtue,” which were two concepts associated heavily with women, particularly during this time. These were not new ideas in themselves; in fact, they were prevalent even in the 16th century (and even today, to a large extent). What changed in the 18th century, however, was the response to these ideas. Many novels during this time portrayed a comparatively “freer” woman who had some amount of agency and was not as oppressed as in the 16th century or before. This agency was often portrayed as a lower-class woman marrying an upper-class man, and thus gaining mobility up the social ladder.
What is ironic, though, is that most of these women were already privileged in many ways, such as having access to education or having a “compliant” nature (by having access to knowing what is considered “right” by society at the time), where they have strong morals and possess virtue.
It is evident through the plot and the form of writing that though these women were depicted as “superior” and in control of themselves, they were actually made to hold up the same ideals that they had to before. The only difference was that they were not portrayed as “dangerous” or a “threat“ to society anymore; they were represented as “free” but were made to comply with more or less the same norms they had to comply with before as well.
According to Marlene LeGates, this method is a “new response to the old problem,” the old “problem” being women’s sexuality and how to control it. This view came from thinkers after the Enlightenment, which meant that ideas of purity and chastity, along with Christianity, were closely linked and tied to the conduct of women. LeGates also mentioned that these thinkers viewed women as “sexually unstable,” but at the same time, tried to portray it as giving women more autonomy than previous centuries. So the woman was now “modernised,” but not to the extent that she overpowers the broader, largely patriarchal, system that had been established and practised by men.
An example of this can be observed in Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, which was written by Samuel Richardson. Pamela Andrews, the fifteen-year-old protagonist, holds off having sexual intercourse with Mr. B (her employer, who is much older) until after they get married. To the readers, the portrayal is framed in a way that it feels like she “controlled” herself and could exercise her power to stop Mr. B from taking her virginity until she wanted to. However, her character is simply being made to succumb to the ideas of morality, virtue, and conduct, which say that sexual intercourse should only take place after marriage.
Men Writing Women
Even though women were often the protagonists, and it was their story the readers usually followed, they were almost always written in relation to men. Considering that most of these novels that became popular were written by men, this simultaneous visibilisation and invisibilisation of women is unsurprising. It would, however, be incorrect to generalise a deliberate invisibilisation of women in these novels, because there existed writers like Daniel Defoe, who, for the time, had quite radical ideas. John Crawford, in his paper, has quoted Defoe as questioning the distinction between the sexes. He wrote that Defoe questioned the fact that if God does not distinguish between the sexes, “why should man?”
The narratorial voice, the nature of the character, and how she thinks in cases of men writing about women would be from presupposed notions of a woman that society either desires or criticises. This can be viewed as a way of exerting power over women, or over how women were seen by society during that time. These novels lead to a depiction of how women’s sexuality was controlled under the guise of “self-control,” when it was almost always imposed upon them.
In John Cleland’s Fanny Hill; or, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, for instance, Fanny Hill experiences sexual assault by Miss Phoebe (her employer) towards the beginning of the novel. The former was sexualised and portrayed as though she enjoyed it. Fanny’s reaction was not one of instant paralysis or fear or horror; it was one of slight confusion. Moreover, the writing of that scene depicted her as even enjoying or trying to take pleasure in the act, which is an extremely unusual reaction, to say the least. The aim is to highlight that even if it was for a reading public, there was a liberty taken by the author to assume a conveniently undisturbed reaction by a woman to her assault.
To conclude, though novels in the 18th century did have women as their protagonists, they were not necessarily “represented” as a group of individuals who demanded equality with men in different spheres of society. There was only a fraction of “women,” too, who occupied space in these novels. Class, though it was not ignored completely, ended up becoming a convenient plot point most often. There were ways in which the woman as a central figure was used to reiterate the power hierarchy between men and women. There was a visibility awarded to women during this time, through men, that might have aided them in some ways but also invisibilised their true concerns in a way. Their private lives were made public such that both these spheres of their lives seemed to be dictated by men and the patriarchal structure.
