Ignorance and Marital Bliss: Women's Education in the English Novel, 1796-1895 Mary Tobin
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2006 Ignorance and Marital Bliss: Women's Education in the English Novel, 1796-1895 Mary Tobin Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Tobin, M. (2006). Ignorance and Marital Bliss: Women's Education in the English Novel, 1796-1895 (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1287 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Ignorance and Marital Bliss: Women’s Education in the English Novel, 1796-1895 A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Department of English McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Mary Ann Tobin November 16, 2006 Copyright © 2006 Mary Ann Tobin Preface The germ of this study lies in my master’s thesis, “Naive Altruist to Jaded Cosmopolitan: Class-Consciousness in David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend,” with which I concluded my studies at Indiana State University. In it, I traced the evolution of Dickens’s ideal gentle Christian man, arguing that Dickens wanted his audience to reject a human valuation system based on birth and wealth and to set the standard for one’s social value upon the strength of one’s moral character. During my doctoral studies, I grew more interested in Dickens’s women characters and became intrigued by his contributions to what would become known as the Woman Question, and, more importantly, by what Dickens thought about women’s proper social functions and roles. Such investigations led me to a broader interest in early feminist philosophy, whereupon I discovered the efforts of mid- to late-nineteenth century feminists to resurrect so-called radical, eighteenth-century ideals regarding women’s education. As I read conduct books, educational treatises, polemics, periodical literature, and more novels—beginning with texts from the mid-seventeenth century and ending with those of the late-nineteenth century—I was struck by how many of the topics presented in them appear in today’s media. For example, I encountered rather familiar advice on the pros and cons of nursing one’s own infants, home schooling, and experiential learning versus rote memorization; dissertations on the vicissitudes of domestic drudgery, the plight of desperate housewives, and the results of insufficient pre- marital preparation; and models of femininity that offer few options besides repressing one’s sexuality or fulfilling men’s desires in order to achieve one’s own goals. iii iv This rather disheartening discovery confirmed my belief that there truly is nothing new under the sun and that the nature of cultural history is cyclical. I also recognized the cyclical nature of feminism’s history, as evidenced by the recent devolution of second wave feminism into what Linda Hirshman refers to as “choice feminism” (1), whereby many women with advanced degrees choose to leave their careers in order to fulfill what society continues to decree women’s ideal mission: to make society a better place by rearing morally responsible children and ameliorating moral and psychological dangers that our immoral, capitalist society inflicts upon men, the fulfillment of which requires that women practice self-sacrifice and self-sublimation in order to tend to the physical and emotional needs of her entire family. I’ve been warned by many that the scope of my project could turn into a lifetime project, and I sincerely hope it does, since it presents endless opportunities for future studies that should produce at least a few forays into the twentieth century, a few hints of which appear in my conclusion. Fortunately, I was never disheartened by the support I’ve received from advisors, colleagues, friends, and family, without whose assistance, contributions, and encouragement this project likely would have taken far longer than it has. I would like to thank my committee, who willingly took on a project that could have easily buried them under the weight of some very large novels and even larger educational treatises. The enthusiasm of Susan Howard, my dissertation director, often matched my own and inspired me to forge ahead despite my having encountered several obstacles to completing this study. I am also grateful to Frederick Newberry, who taught me the value of pith. I am especially indebted to Laura Callanan, who agreed to become my third reader, upon the passing of Richard C. Tobias, who originally held that position. Tob, as v he preferred to be called, deserves special encomia for readily agreeing, in true Dickensian Fellowship, to intermix my musings with his enjoyment of partial retirement from the University of Pittsburgh. May he rest in well earned peace, if the angels can convince him to do so. Representatives from departments other than English at Duquesne University have been enormously helpful in providing me with some unbelievably difficult-to-find sources and with refreshing my distant memories of classical civilizations and tongues. Many, many thanks to Angela Fleming and Kathy Julius of Gumberg Library’s Interlibrary Loan Department and to Stephen Newmyer of the Department of Classics. If I could thank the Internet as well, I would, for keeping me in close contact with reliable sources of information at other institutions. I am indebted to “super librarians” David Murray, of Temple University’s Paley Library, and Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Delaware Library, for fact checking and providing key details at the drop of an email. Both are to be especially commended for their competitive natures that often spurred each of them to race to produce information that the other may have missed. Gentleman, cool your search engines. I am also much obliged for the friendship and wisdom of Florence Boos, Professor of English at the University of Iowa, and Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities at the University of Delaware, both of whom brought fresh perspectives to portions of this dissertation and encouraged me to seek out the rarer air of non-canonical works and neglected eighteenth- and nineteenth-century feminists. vi Köszönöm szépen and éljenek soká to each member of my family for her or his perpetual support and periodic reality checks. I particularly cherish the influence and inspiration of my mother, Gizella Chasko, whose interest in wedding rituals and cultural history initiated my own inquiries into how and why women get married, and how they prepare to take on their unique women’s missions. Finally, my most sincere gratitude, fervent esteem, and deepest affection go to my editor, sounding board, and partner in all literary and personal endeavors, Thomas J. Tobin, who took every step of this long journey alongside me. Someday, we’ll write that book together and put our “book jacket portrait” to good use—just let’s not make it about Charles Dickens or Pre-Raphaelitism for a change. Table of Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................. iii Illustration ...................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ......... Revolutions in Women’s Education in ............................................... 1 British Fact and Fiction, 1791 to 1896 Chapter 1 ............... The Futility of Women’s Education in ........................................... 34 Mary Hays’s Memoirs of Emma Courtney and Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman Chapter 2 .............. Practical Women’s Education in ...................................................... 82 Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda Chapter 3 .............. Humanizing Ideal Women’s Education in ..................................... 124 Susan Ferrier’s Marriage. Chapter 4 ............... Commercial versus Natural Women’s Education in ..................... 171 Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son Chapter 5 .............. Student-oriented Women’s Education in ....................................... 213 Charlotte Brontë’s Villette Chapter 6 ............... Overcoming Inadequate Pre-marital Training in .......................... 259 Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux Chapter 7 ............... The Futility of Educating Working Class Feminists in ................. 299 Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure Conclusion ............ Revolutions in Women’s Education in .......................................... 342 the Twenty-first Century Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 365 Notes .............................................................................................................................. 389 vii viii Illustration Figure 1 .......... Browne, Hablot Knight. “A Chance Meeting.” Dombey and Son. .... 201 London, 1848. New York: Penguin, 1985: 663. Introduction Revolutions in Women’s Education in British Fact and Fiction, 1791 to 1896 No magic rune is stranger than a book. All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is