Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Klára Danielová

Victorian Women and Their Representation in Selected Stories

Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt.

2009

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Klára Danielová

2

I would like to thank my supervisor, PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt., for her patience and kindness with which she assisted me with writing my thesis.

3 CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 5

I. Victorian Women ...... 8

I.1 Victorian England and Her Women ...... 8

I.2 Working-Class Women: The Issues of Class and Occupation ...... 9

I.3 Upper-Class Women: Their Home and Social Responsibilities ...... 11

I.4 The Middle Class and the Issues of Homemaking ...... 12

I.5 Free Time Activities and the Double Standard ...... 15

I.6 Women‟s Education: Prejudice and Development ...... 17

I.7 Married Women: Their Rights and Property ...... 20

I.8 Victorian Marriage: Making and Purpose ...... 22

I.9 Married Life: The Issues of Sex and Divorce ...... 23

I.10 Spinsters, Bachelors and Their Social Status ...... 25

II. The Representation of Women in Selected Sherlock Holmes Stories ... 27

II. I The Case of and Detective Fiction ...... 27

II.2 The Adventures of Doyle, Watson, Holmes and Their Women ...... 28

II.3 The Case of Middle-Class Women ...... 32

II.4 The Problem of Women‟s Employment and Education ...... 34

II.5 The Case of the Woman Criminal ...... 37

II.6 The Problem of the Woman in Love ...... 39

II.7 The Issues of Women of Property and Divorce ...... 41

Conclusion ...... 44

Bibliography ...... 48

Appendix: The Stories Examined and Their Abbreviations ...... 50

4 INTRODUCTION

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle‟s Sherlock Holmes ranks among the most significant

Great Detectives, and this character‟s adventures have been extremely popular since their first appearance. Apart from ingenious puzzles, the stories capture the atmosphere of Victorian England, her people and culture; and although nineteenth-century detective fiction is generally considered to have been written by men, for men and about men, in my thesis I try to demonstrate that it is also for women and about women. There is a considerable number of female characters depicted in the stories analysed and the reader can find many pieces of information on Victorian women and their lives at the end of the nineteenth century.

My thesis is divided into two major parts. The first part is connected with the social history of the period, and as the main source of information I use The Victorian

Home (1977) by Jenni Calder. In this part I examine England of the second half of the nineteenth century, the setting of most Doyle‟s stories. I focus on women and their social position and rights; I analyse differences between women of various social classes; I examine the prejudices women had to face and the acts of Parliament that considerably affected women‟s lives.

The first part is further divided into ten subchapters in which I discuss the points mentioned above in greater detail. For example, I discuss lives of working-class women; I examine the effects of middle-class philosophy on the working class and why society considered working women a threat to the social order. I also deal with upper- class women and women of aristocratic background and contrast responsibilities of women in cities and in the country. In connection with middle-class women, I focus on the cult of domesticity and servants who helped confine women to the roles of

5 supervisors. I further discuss the concept of Victorian home; I analyse which free time activities were considered proper for women and I also examine the double standard for men and women as far as entertainment was concerned. I describe the kind of education girls received at home; I discuss the prejudice against female education in general and further education in particular. Various kinds of schools are described together with jobs that were believed suitable for women. Finally, married women‟s rights are analysed, and the issues of sex and divorce, and spinsters and bachelors examined.

In the second main part of my thesis, I concentrate on the representation of women in Sherlock Holmes stories. I examine how women are portrayed and my aim is to find evidence for my points in the first part of the thesis and prove that the representation of women in the stories is fairly realistic and that the stories could serve as a source of information on Victorian women.

All the short stories examined in my thesis are taken from the collection, Sherlock

Holmes: The Complete Illustrated Short Stories (1985), published by Chancellor Press1.

In greater detail, I analyse predominantly female characters from fifteen short stories.

When I refer to those characters, I also use abbreviations of the stories titles as follows:

“” (SIB), “” (CI), “The Adventure of the

Speckled Band” (AOSB), “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (BC), “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (CB), “The Adventure of the Crooked Man (CM)”, “The

Adventure of the Dancing Men” (DM), “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist” (SC),

“The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” (CAM), “The Adventure of the Abbey

Grange” (AG), “The Adventure of the Second Stain” (SS), “The Adventure of the Red

1The collection entry in bibliography starts with Doyle, Arthur Conan. When quoting the stories, I use the author‟s surname and page number from the collection in paranthetical reference.

6 Circle” (RC), “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (DLFC), “The Problem of

Thor Bridge” (TB), “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” (SV).1

The second part of my thesis is further divided into seven subchapters. First, I introduce Doyle and his detective stories, discussing real models for the main protagonists and the author‟s relationship to his detective. Next, I attempt to consider

Doyle, Watson and Holmes and their relationships with women. I elaborate on details from Doyle‟s life that are captured in the stories. Then I focus on the representation of middle class-women, household servants and the cult of domesticity. Further, I examine the heroines and the jobs they do; I also discuss female education and intelligence.

Female criminals, the frequent theme of blackmailing and elaborating on the myth of

English women as incorruptible beings are the focus of the following subchapters as well as love and marriage and the social class and wealth in the choice of a future spouse. Finally, I explore the changes in society caused by new laws, with focus on the

Women‟s property acts and divorce reform.

In the conclusion I compare my findings from the first part with those of the second part, and I demonstrate how historical facts are represented in Holmes stories. I try to prove that the representation of women faithfully reflects the situation in

Victorian England.

1 The list of the stories examined and their abbreviations is also provided in the Appendix, arranged in alphabetical order and stating the first publishing year.

7 I. VICTORIAN WOMEN

I.1 Victorian England and Her Women

Women in Victorian England were believed to be inferior to men; they “were subjected to their [men‟s] authority in many ways” (Fletcher 108) and their legal status was similar to that of children. Their fathers, husbands or other male relatives were their legal representatives and it was men who were in charge of women‟s property for almost all the nineteenth century. Women were not allowed to vote and were not legal guardians of their children. A Victorian woman “would be stoical, motherly, submissive and chaste” (Paxman 228); “[I]nnocence and inexperience and a cultivated fragility were the characteristic attributes of the Victorian girl” (Klein 264). The division of sexes was clear; men and women knew that their roles were different and accepted that they were, “even within marriage, obliged [them] to lead separate and unequal lives until they died” (Paxman 212). The man was the bread-winner; the woman was confined to domesticity. As domestic beings, most women were denied education because it was considered unnecessary. Women were not found in professions or skilled trade; if they worked, they worked in jobs where no higher education was required. At home they were expected to be amiable companions and not partners with whom men would discuss business or politics.

The main role of every woman was the role of a mother and a home-maker, which were roles believed to be congenital to women. “It was the wife who made the home, who cared for her children within it, who brought her husband back to it when work was done, who provided the hot dinners and created the atmosphere of comfort and protection” (Calder 27).Women were automatically expected to become ideal wives and mothers and were brought up to be charming angels who were “ideally, both decorative

8 and useful” (Calder 9) and whose main target in life was finding a suitable husband.

Unmarried women, failing their mission to bring up a new generation of offspring, were considered conspicuous and a danger to the stability of society, in which the family unit was the foundation stone. However, the status of women and their rights and duties cannot be generalized since they varied according to the social class a woman came from.

I.2 Working Class Women: The Issues of Class and Occupation

In the mid-century, “around 75 per cent of the population was working class”

(Calder 70) and “millions of families all over the country lived on a borderline between poverty and squalor” (Calder 65). As a result, the working class was considered a threat to the social order and values advanced by the middle class. Consequently, the working class was pressed into acquirement of middle-class values that were expected to transform the ignorant mass of the underprivileged into decent people.

According to the middle-class philosophy, it was the woman who made “all the difference between a rioting striker and a hard-working labouring man” (Calder 70). It was believed that the woman who stayed at home and devoted her entire time to looking after her children and making her home a clean and cosy place was the core of the orderly family; and the man whose wife made his home a comfortable and tidy place was not likely to go out into streets and look for diversions there.1 On the other hand, how could a woman create an attractive home for her husband if she had to go out to work? A woman spending twelve or more hours a day working was be able to create a tidy home for her husband; make a decent meal for him and take care of their children

1 Free time activities of working class men were considered undesirable because activities such as going to public houses leading to extensive drinking habits were seen as a threat to the social order.

9 after she returned home.1 Homes of working women were therefore usually untidy, their children neglected and their husbands seeking amusement in the streets. A working woman could not create a real home for her family, which ramined the main argument in debates over female employment. “The employment of women was [thus] widely condemned. It was seen as an offence to feminine decency, as a threat to the family and as leading directly to immorality” (Calder 67). “The fact that men and women mingled freely in their work was highly improper and bound to lead to all kinds of dubious activities” (Calder 69). The middle class presented this philosophy to the working class but did not realize that the money women brought home, although their wages were generally smaller than that of their husbands, could make all the difference between starvation and decent living.

To be able to go out to work, working mothers would often pay “a few shillings a week to a child-minder, usually an elderly and often incapable woman or a very young girl” (Calder 29). “It was not unusual for a nine year old to be left in charge of a baby”

(Calder 67). Because working women could not afford to pay for servants, they had to perform all the household chores themselves, which, at the time of no ready water supply and no mechanical aids, was very demanding and time-consuming. Long hours and the working conditions were such “as positively to produce an ignorance of even the most rudimentary arts of homemaking” (Fletcher 87). The result was the dirt, essential to the working class housing, diseases and problems of alcoholism and prostitution. And, according to the middle class ideal, it was the working woman who was to blame. She could not prevent her husband from running out of home in the evenings; she could not teach her daughters the basics of domestic economy and

1 The Ten Hours Bill of 1847 reduced the number of hours women were allowed to work a day to ten.

10 household chores and, as the result, it was the working woman who prevented the working class from improving its status and living conditions in general.

I.3 Upper-Class Women: Their Homes and Social Responsibilities

On the opposite side of the social ladder, there were women from the upper middle class and of aristocratic background. Analogous to working class women, upper- middle class and aristocratic women had their duties and tasks to attend to. This was most easily visible in the country where the lady had responsibility for her tenants.

Although it varied, the responsibilities the landed gentry was expected to exert might include “caring for the sick and helpless, assisting with local schooling [and] donating money for local causes” (Calder 46). As a result, upper-class country women were quite busy and could see themselves useful. The situation in towns was different since women there were devoid of these responsibilities and their activities were restricted to homemaking.

However, their homemaking responsibilities were limited too. These women did not perform the domestic chores. Upper-middle class women had a range of servants at hand and the woman‟s function was mostly supervisory. The woman gave orders in the morning and during the day she oversaw if they were carried out properly. If a woman employed a housekeeper, she did not have to attend to everyday household affairs at all.

Even though the supervisory element should not be diminished, such women were at leisure most of their time and their function became more or less social.

An everyday task of upper-middle-class women was accepting visitors and paying visits. There were given hours of the day during which women admitted visitors and returned the visits. Visiting was not an informal occasion for seeing friends. It was a social occasion which had its rules and which had to be performed in the correct way:

11 [V]isiting [which] had to be done at the proper hours in the proper way. Morning

visits were fairly informal and required less dressing up then afternoon visits.

Cards were left if the person visited was not at home – which could mean that she

was genuinely out, or that she was simply not available, and it was not polite to

question which. [...] This kind of semi-formal visiting was very much a female

occupation, and was regarded more as a social obligation than as an amusement. It

was not done to stay too long, and the conversation was hardly likely to be either

intimate or relaxed. (Calder 31)

Besides visiting, another common female activity was organizing dinner parties for their and their husbands‟ friends and family members. Such parties were the occasions during which the hostess proved her homemaking skills and her taste. It was the woman‟s task to represent her husband and be, together with all the equipment of the household, a symbol of his social status. But being a decorative object was not exclusively an upper class women‟s domain. A lot of these characteristics applied to the middle class women as well.

I.4 The Middle Class and the Issues of Homemaking

Although the nineteenth century is considered the century of the middle class, at that time it still was an “undefinable class [that] was trying hard, even desperately, to characterize and identify itself” (Calder 31). The middle class considered the huge mass of the working classes as a threat to its fragile position and it assumed that it could only fight this danger with acquiring the habits of the upper classes. Consequently, the middle class began to emulate the standards of those above.

To be allowed to call oneself a member of the middle class, one had to meet a few demands. The first criterion was the presence of servants in an adequate house. One

12 servant was a necessity in household with middle-class aspirations. “An income of ₤300 a year is frequently mentioned as the magic figure, above which a decent, though modest household could be maintained” (Calder 28);1 and “[w]ith an income of above

₤300 a year it was reckoned that two servants could be employed” (Calder 30)2. A middle-class woman was not expected to perform all the household chores on her own but it was sufficient to employ a maid of “all trades” to claim the middle class status and have at least a certain amount of leisure time that had been the symbol of the privileged classes and, consequently, one of the prime aims of the middle class.

It was the middle class who had the lion‟s share on the creation of the cult of domesticity and it is generally the middle class woman who is pictured in literature as a woman without any active participation in running her family. “The wife and mother, no longer intimately involved in the business „undertaking‟, was confined to domestic life, and, with domestic servants, became more and more of a „functionless‟ member of the household – one ornament amongst others [...] – totally subjected to the authority of her husband” (Fletcher 93). Middle-class women were not allowed to go out to work because a working woman was a sign of immorality and deprived conditions. A middle class man had to be able to have a sufficient income to support his family.

“[M]atrimony [was] the only means for a woman to provide for herself, while at the same time minimising her positive contribution to marriage to such an extent as to make her feel a burden rather than an active partner in a common enterprise” (Klein 265). The duty of a middle class woman was to stay at home and create home and a refuge for her husband. A middle-class woman was taught that “if she did not undertake the responsibility of making her home attractive she could not blame her husband for

1 Calder mentions that at that time “a teacher or a junior clerk might earn as little as ₤60 a year” (29).

2 Calder adds that “by the end of the century, when servants‟ wages had risen, [...] an income of ₤1000 a year was necessary before three servants could be employed” (30).

13 spending his evenings at the club, or seeking more dubious forms of entertainment”

(Calder 70). But with servants to do all the household chores, she did not take an active part in working in the household and confined herself to supervision and the outside social tasks. She did not have the duties of an upper-class woman in the country and she could not go out to seek amusement there. The range of activities she could do at home was extremely limited and apart from the overall control, she spent her days doing needlework and/or painting.

“Home sweet home” was a very important concept for the Victorians. It was a place where women were protected from the dangerous outside world and for men it was a refuge where they came to relax and refresh their spirit after a day in the hostile commercial world. For men, home was a place of relaxation, warm meals and night rest.

For women, it was a place where they genuinely belonged and did not leave until necessary. “Home and the female were inevitably intimately associated” (Calder 9). The world outside home was considered unsuitable for delicate Victorian women; it was full of wiles and perils. At home women were safe and they were supposed to spend their entire days there creating a refuge for their husbands. If the woman did not have any servants, she did not have time for anything else than housework. Without electricity and running water, with coal heating, gas lightning and children to look after, the woman was kept busy all day. But with servants to do all the chores the woman was free and left to do her fancywork which then filled the over decorated interiors, so typical of the Victorian era.

Although the wife was expected to make a comfortable home for her husband, either by herself and/or by supervising the servants, marks of her activity had to remain hidden on the husband‟s arrival. Detergent smell, kitchen utensils and even children‟s toys were removed; all things were in their places and a warm dinner ready. Men did

14 not participate in household duties; “only a „meek‟ man would descend to doing the chores „in his own house‟” (Calder 70); and as women were not expected to go out to work, men were not supposed to perform household chores.

I.5 Free Time Activities and the Double Standard

Women were taught to become home makers. With other job opportunities closed to them, homemaking was the only field in which they could express their talents and be useful. Without it, women would have become mere decorative objects without any practical contribution to their families. “[H]ome-making gave a woman something to do that was essentially womanly. [...] There was little scope for the home-centred middle- class wife except in house management. Going for walks and doing exercises were small compensations for feeling useless” (Calder 111). Homemaking was solely and the only female occupation and women were aware of it. Even early feminists, who called for more job opportunities open to women, did not diminish the importance of women as homemakers. There was still “a strong belief that a home is not a real home unless it maintains warmth and food and consolation, particularly for the breadwinner‟s return

[...], and that the creation of these things is the special province of women” (Calder

146). Creating the ideal of perfect home was the mission of women and other activities, especially those outside home, were considered unnecessary and quite often inappropriate.

The mistress of the household was employed in “giving instructions, perhaps unlocking store cupboards [...] and measuring out the provisions of the day [and] ordering the meals” (Calder 20). After she attended to all these responsibilities or if she experienced well-trained servants whom she trusted to perform all these jobs, her life could be judged as inactive. Women could go for walks or drives, do some shopping or,

15 especially in the country, “there was an increasing number of pastimes women could enjoy, croquet, archery, and later tennis” (Calder 22).1 At home women were not obliged to leave the chair much since all the activities were sedentary. Despite the ideal of the life of leisure, time wasting was frowned upon and as a result, women created vast numbers of decorative objects. Another approved past time activity was reading.

Reading of the Bible but also of novels and other forms of popular literature was, since domestic, decent and physically unexacting, an ideal activity for the nineteenth-century

Victorian women.

Since women were said to be destined for domestic life, they were discouraged to seek amusement outside their home. “[T]he theatre, the music hall, the pleasure gardens

[...] were dubious localities for the respectable married woman and her daughters. [...]

Entertainment, other than that of the dinner party or the „At Home‟ or the ball, is either a lower-class or a masculine need” (Calder 134). If a woman wanted to go out, she could only visit a female friend. Men could enjoy themselves outside home more because for them there were numerous places of entertainment, from clubs to places were sexual services were easily available. The fact that men left their home quite often could be explained by the lack of activity inside it. Since men did not do needlework and playing an instrument was considered a feminine activity, the range of suitable activities for men was even narrower than that of women.2 But “a man could remove himself from an undesirable domestic situation, and often did, while for a women it was very difficult, and any attempt to do so might well involve scandal” (Calder 144). It was not until the first decades of the 20th century that the concept of home as a solely female

1 Going shopping was believed to be a proper female activity; however, shopping for food had not better been done by the house mistress but by someone else. 2 Calder argues at this point that “there was a great deal of boredom, and that boredom [...] might well have accounted for the middle-aged frequenters of prostitutes, and that boredom almost certainly accounted for the flourishing state of gentlemen‟s clubs” (134).

16 place declined in its importance and women could become more active and were allowed to leave home more freely.

I.6 Women’s Education: Prejudice and Development

The range of activities Victorian women could do was limited. The middle class ideal was a life in idleness. “Apart from bearing children, the social function of bourgeois woman was to be a living testimony to her husband‟s social status.

Accordingly, her virtues were chastity and a sense of propriety. They did not include either industry or intelligence” (Klein 264). Women were being prepared for their lives of domestic angels from their childhood and their education reflected it. “A woman without the ability to handle a little music, a little drawing, and lots of needlework was considered lacking, as was a woman who was socially gauche” (Calder 117).

Consequently, girls were taught proper manners and delicacy to be able to represent their future husbands; they learned to play a musical instrument and to sing; they had lessons of needlework. Some girls were encouraged to read or learn languages but only to some extent. “Many manuals indeed specifically warn women against being too clever in the company of men. Men don‟t like clever, opinionated women; [...] it is to a woman‟s detriment to appear so” (Calder 44). Women were not only warned against seeming clever; they were actually believed not to be able of studying and “the term

„educated woman‟ was an oxymoron” (Paxman 222). A popular prejudice was that

“women had smaller skulls then men, which meant smaller brains. [Moreover], the physical demands of menstruation, growing breast and childbearing meant that there was less effort available for mental activity” (Paxman 226). Subjects like mathematics were considered encumbering and “if you taught women Latin and Greek, you clogged up valuable brain space that should have been occupied with the finer points of cooking

17 and sewing and dealing with tradesmen” (Paxman 222). However, girls usually did not learn rules of domestic economy and running a household either and as a rule they started their own households without any knowledge of them.

Working class daughters, if they were not out at work all days, had their domestic responsibilities from an early age but “[t]he middle class was wary of allowing responsibility to their children, and the better manager the wife and mother was, the less opportunity for the daughter to acquire some of her skills” (Calder 102). Social critics and reformers pointed out that “[t]here was little in a woman‟s education to prepare her for the realities of housekeeping, the demands of domestic economy, the management of servants, the care of children, the cultivation of taste” (Calder 102). There was a call to change this situation and, as a result, around the middle of the century, housekeeping manuals and magazines began to be filled with advice on all household affairs.

Domestic economy also came to be taught at schools and “[b]y 1876 „domestic economy‟ was a compulsory subject for girls at board schools” (Calder 82), schools that were set up to provide education for those who could not afford attending the existing private schools.

“Board” schools were established after the 1870 Education Act was passed. After that, “all children had to go to school up to the age of thirteen, where they were taught reading, writing and arithmetic” (McDowall 151). Although elementary education became compulsory and a great number of schools were founded, it was not until “the

1880s and 1890s that there was anything like a rush of foundations of girls‟ high schools and boarding schools, and until then it is a fair presumption that expensive secondary education for their daughters remained a decidedly secondary consideration with even upper-middle-class parents” (Thompson 66). Although it was sons who took

18 precedence in being further educated, it was as early as 1848 when the first college for women was founded.

F.D. Maurice‟s Queen‟s College in Harley Street “was open to all girls over the age of twelve [...] and it issued its own certificates of proficiency” (Banerjee). “The teachers were all men [...] for there were no women with the necessary qualifications, but the proprieties were ensured by chaperones known as Lady Visitors” (Grylls 256).

Queen‟s College “transformed the lives of women, opening doors into the professions”

(“Pioneering”) that had been closed for them. Yet, as already mentioned, it was generally believed that “female employment outside home, whether of married or unmarried women, whether in factories or elsewhere, made women into bad housewives and mothers because it deprived them of domestic training or inclination, and hence weakened the family” (Thompson 87). Consequently, if women wanted or needed to go to work, it was easier for women to assert themselves in professions that were thought to be natural for them. Women first won recognition as professional nurses and teachers and it was only a little later that women became librarians in quickly developing public libraries and shop assistants in newly established department stores. A significant moment became “the establishment of girl clerks as civil servants in 1870 when the electric telegraphs were taken over by the Government; it showed that a department expected – and got – from women, trained and efficient service” (Grylls 258). It was also social service were women found use for their capabilities. It was possible to find women in “all fields of social work: Prison reform, nursing and hospital administration, social investigations, and charitable organisations of all kinds” (Klein 265). Although women such as Florence Nightingale, Beatrice Webb and Octavia Hill proved that women were capable of efficient work, there were still many of those who did not want to come to terms with the idea of female professionals. It was in “1893 that a proposal

19 to admit women to fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society was defeated. [It was justified as] not so much injurious to men as disastrous to women” (Grylls 259). It can therefore be claimed that it still continued to be regarded as unnatural for women to be further educated and get involved in traditional male domains.

It follows that it still remained exceptional for a woman to be educated at college or to enter professions. Daughters from middle- and upper-middle-class families continued to be educated at home by their governesses or were sent to private schools whose curriculum reflected that “the purpose of female education was to make girls fit for domestic lives as wives and mothers” (Watts). It included the rudiments of teaching because it “was a natural role for women [and] mothers were the best teachers for girls”

(Watts); but the main purpose of most schools and the main reason for a daughter to be sent to school was to provide her with “a smattering of accomplishments with the sole object of catching a husband as soon as possible after leaving” (Grylls 256). Matrimony still remained the main target of most women‟s lives.

I.7 Married Women: Their Rights and Property

Being a wife and mother was supposed to be a divine mission; caring about the husband and childbearing was the highest achievement of every woman. “[T]he woman who was neither wife nor mother, through choice or through misfortune, was seen as less feminine than her domesticated counterpart” (Calder 128). It was also of economic importance for a woman to get married. Except working-class women, women were not expected to go out to work and it was their husbands‟ responsibility to provide them financially. With a husband, a woman gained her own household she could run and where she could utilize her taste and wishes. “For a woman marriage meant the acquisition of an „establishment‟, her own place, financed by her husband, [...], a place

20 where she had at least some freedom of choice and activity, which she might not have had at all in the parental home” (Calder 9). After marriage women became mistresses of their houses and respected members of the community.

On the other hand, marriage did not secure women the same rights with men.

Although throughout the nineteenth century a series of laws improving the legal status of women was passed, women were not equal with men. Women were not legal representatives of their children and it was only after the 1839 Custody of Infants Act that it was “possible for wives estranged from their husbands to gain custody of children less than seven years old” (Nelson 51). Within marriage, fathers had authority not only over the children but they were also possessors of all property the woman had brought to marriage or gained during its existence.

A husband and wife were “one person in law” and, consequently, “women could not make wills or dispose of any property without their husbands‟ consent” (Brinjikji).

Unless a prenuptial agreement was made, women lost control over any property they possessed at the time they got married. Once married, women could gain the control of their property only after their husbands‟ dearth. “Once widowed, women were entitled to a dower, which was usually equivalent to one third of the husband‟s estate”

(Brinjikji). But women who deserted their husbands were left destitute. It was only after the 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act that deserted women could again dispose of their property and were granted “the rights to earning, savings, and legal investments”

(Brinjikji). Property rights of married women remained unchanged until the 1882

Married Women‟s Property Act was passed. It gave married women “separate rights over their inheritance, earnings and property” (Brinjikji) and made husband and wife separate legal entities.

21 I. 8 Victorian Marriage: Making and Purpose

In spite of the fact that women could not dispose of their own or their husbands‟ wealth, money and real property remained important aspects when choosing the future spouse. The social class the future partners came from also played an indispensable role but “the arranged marriage in which parents carried out all the negotiations and the bride and groom had never seen each other before their wedding day had no place in any level of British society” (Thompson 110).1 Couples were expected to come from the same social class, and most often did, but the freest in choosing husbands and wives were nevertheless the lower middle class and working classes; stricter social exclusiveness confined to upper-middle class and families of aristocratic background.

“The middle-class image of marriage was clearly one of a union between social equals, with a penchant for welcoming the good fortune of the occasional lucky alliance with a social superior and to be unforgiving if a son or daughter became entangled with an inferior” (Thompson 99). To avoid shame caused by an uncalled-for match, parents were careful of the company their children were keeping. Widespread leisure time activities such as tennis matches, tea parties and home balls were ideal places for introducing young people to possible partners.

Despite wider opportunities for socializing in the second half of the nineteenth century, the mean age at marriage for both brides and grooms remained high, twenty- five and late twenties or early thirties respectively.2 Men married relatively late due to the common practice of providing fully for his wife and family. “They [middle and upper-class men] needed a good income before marriage was possible. It was considered to be not only risky to marry without a suitable income, but immoral. Young people were warned that love was not enough” (Calder 29). The Victorians did not

1 Royal marriages were the only exception; spouses continued to be chosen for political and dynastic reasons. 2 Figures taken from Thompson 52 and 59.

22 condemn romantic love entirely but they were taught that their aim should be setting a comfortable and respectable home. “Young women wanted establishment as much as husbands, but only through the latter could they acquire the former, and young men, or not so very young [...], wanted domestic care and the symbolic value of a wife and a home” (Calder 124). What they, and daughters in particular, were not taught were some other aspects of marriage life, discussed below.

I. 9 Married Life: The Issues of Sex and Divorce

Fletcher argues that Victorian respectability hid the importance of sexuality in the love relationship in a “dark cupboard” (116). Women were expected to be innocent on their wedding day equipped maybe with knowledge of “the hinted-at horrors of the marriage bed” (Calder 102). Men reserved the right to sexual experience and pleasure for themselves, meanwhile chastity belonged among the crucial characteristics of

Victorian women. “English women were all roses, pure and incorruptible” (Paxman

214) and “the only good woman was a chaste woman” (Paxman 218). It was a woman‟s duty to submit to her husband‟s desires but she was not believed or encouraged to have any sexual appetite whatsoever. Men had appetites, women were taught to “endure

[rather] than to enjoy” (Calder 107). In such an atmosphere, it is not hard to understand that the places where men could seek sexual satisfaction were flourishing. Although respectable Victorians pretended that the trade did not exist, “[b]y 1859, the police knew of 2,828 brothels in , a figure reckoned [...] to be half of the true total, calculating that there were about 80,000 prostitutes on the street” (Paxman 212).

Society tolerated men keeping mistresses; and “[i]f men were sexually incontinent, it was the fault of women” (Paxman 217). But a woman with a lover would cause a scandal and being found guilty of adultery meant humiliation and shame. Double

23 standard was acknowledged even in the law. Male adultery was not, in contrast to female, a reason for divorce.

A legal separation from one‟s spouse was difficult even in the middle of the nineteenth century although there were several ways of breaking-up one‟s marriage.

“The first of these was by sueing in the church courts for separation from bed and board, without permission to remarry” (Stone 141) and it could be gained only on the grounds of adultery or extreme cruelty. The rich could obtain divorce through a private act of Parliament but they had to prove their wives‟ adultery. “The third method [...] was by a private separation” (Stone 141) which was an agreement of both partners to part. Those who had a little property chose the way of elopement, desertion, or, in a few cases with the lower classes in particular, wife-selling during which the wife was sold at the market for the highest offer. Nevertheless, it was not a common practice as “[w]e can be reasonably confident that fewer than three hundred cases of wife-sale occurred in all England during the peak seventy years from 1780 to 1850” (Stone 148). Whatever means of separation one chose, men could obtain divorce by proving their wives‟ adultery but, save cases of life-threatening cruelty, women could not ask for a divorce.

If they left their husbands, they did not have any rights to their property and children. It was the 1857 Divorce Bill that did introduce some changes to that. Not only did separated women gain, as already mentioned, rights over their earnings, investments and savings, they also got a chance to get custody of their children. “No longer did a husband [...] automatically have legal possession of all the children” (Stone 388).

Although women were not granted full access to divorce and did not achieve equal status with men, the question of their rights was brought to the public and was given attention in Parliament.

24 I.10 Spinsters, Bachelors and Their Social Status

Divorced women were a minority in the nineteenth-century society; married women created the majority, but still a large group was made by women who never married. “[I]n England and Wales about 11 per cent of males were unmarried at the age of forty-five; [...] for females the proportions were about 12 per cent” (Thompson 91) around the middle of the century. Although marriage was explained to be the primary purpose of an individual‟s life, an indispensable number of men and women remained single. Their status in society, however, remained awkward. “The bachelor is often considered dubious because he is without what could be considered a proper home, and the spinster to be unfortunate and unfulfilled” (Calder 108). Since it was the woman‟s role to create home, she seemed devoid of her purpose if she did not have anybody for whom to make it.

Moreover, as daughters did not usually inherit their fathers‟ real property, spinsters were often forced to live with their brothers‟ families and be dependent on them. “The unmarried aunt, sister or daughter could be expected to pay willingly for the security of a home in terms of the service she could give” (Calder 143). This gave way to exploitation of women‟s work and aroused concern in the society. “[M]iddle class spinsters in families unable to support them in idleness [...] were perceived as constituting a social problem, because of the scarcity of jobs of acceptable status”

(Thompson 92). Klein adds that the “the unmarriageable surplus of female population

[...] was felt to be an acute problem, [...] accentuated by the emigration of able-bodied men of marriageable age to America and the Colonies” (262). With social conventions requiring women to stay out of work and with the middle and upper-middle class habits of marrying their social equals, the issue of spinsterhood continued to represent a problem, one that could not be easily solved by a change of law.

25 All women experienced a series of changes during the Victorian era. Wives, mothers, widows, divorced women, spinsters; and their rights and social status were in the centre of attention of a not insignificant number of people. It can hardly be surprising that representation of women and all the social changes concerning them appeared in all genres of popular fiction, including the detective story.

26 II. THE REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN SELECTED SHERLOCK

HOLMES STORIES

II.1 The Case of Arthur Conan Doyle and Detective Fiction

This year, detective fiction connoisseurs commemorate one hundred and fifty years‟ birth anniversary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the creator of the

Great Detective, Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was of Irish origin and Scottish by birth; he studied at Jesuit school and later at the University in Edinburgh to become a physician.

Nevertheless, he had never many patients and described his practice as consisting of “a waiting-room and a consulting-room, where I waited in the consulting-room and no one waited in the waiting-room” (qtd. in Pearson 103). However, he was thus able to read numbers of historical books and begin writing historical novels. He thought himself to be a historical novelist and considered his novels The White Company and Micah

Clarke his best work. Although Symons regards “some of the other books [...] not much inferior to that of Scott” (73), it is his Sherlock Holmes stories Doyle is still famous for today and he is frequently remembered as the father of the British detective story.

The protagonists of Doyle‟s detective stories, Sherlock Homes and Dr. John H.

Watson, have become legendary figures since their first appearance in A Study in

Scarlet (1885). “There were living models for both Holmes and Watson” (Pearson 99),

Dr. for the former, whom Doyle met during his university studies and who fascinated Doyle by his deduction skills; and to some extent Dr. Doyle for the latter, as

Doyle “frequently and unconsciously pictured himself in the character” (Pearson 102).

Doyle “took Holmes‟s style of interpretation from Poe1 and the form of some deductions from Gaboriau2 [...] but out of the borrowings he made something

1 Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 2 Emile Gaboriau (1832-1873)

27 completely his own” (Symons 73) and created an original character that immediately became a favourite with readers.

The first series, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which ran in The Strand

Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892, was followed in December 1892 by The

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes at which end, in December 1893, Doyle killed his protagonist of whom he was not fond any more. As he writes to a friend, he has had

“such an overdose of him that I feel towards him as I do towards pâté de foie gras, of which I once ate too much, so that the name of it gives me a sickly feeling to this day”

(qtd in Pearson 107). But readers did not want to lose their favourite hero and Doyle

“was to have no peace until he resurrected Sherlock. Readers implored him, editors cajoled him, agents worried him, publishers tried to bribe him, some people even threatened him” (Pearson 107). Doyle resisted all this pressure until 1903 when he introduced a new adventure of the detective in The Hound of the Baskervilles and then brought Holmes back to life in a new series in The Strand. Doyle continued in writing short stories for another twenty-four years; the fifty-sixth and last story appeared in

April 1927.

II.2 The Adventures of Doyle, Watson, Holmes and Their Women

At the age of 25, Doyle married Miss Louise Hawkins, sister of one of his patients. He “found with Louise the warm and glowing sweetness of home life” (qtd. in

Redmond 44). With Touie, as he called his wife, he had two children, a girl and a boy.

But in 1893, his wife fell ill with tuberculosis and never recovered. Doctors declared she had only a few months of life but Doyle tried to fight the fate and moved his family to Davos in the High Alps, then to Egypt and finally bought in Surrey which was believed to be an ideal place for curing lungs disorders. And he succeeded, giving

28 Louise thirteen more years of life.1 Doyle‟s biographer Pierre Nordon believes that

Doyle‟s “wife‟s delicate health and gentle character aroused an ever watchful protective instinct” (qtd. in Redmond 44) and gentlemanly and chivalrous behaviour in her husband. Doyle‟s son Adrian recalled that “at the age of sixteen he happened to speak of a certain woman as ugly, upon which his father boxed his ears and said, „No woman is ugly. Every woman is beautiful. But some are more beautiful than others‟” (qtd. in

Pearson 195). However, Doyle was not only a parlour gentleman; he also committed himself to helping practical aspects of women‟s lives.

He was a member and also the president of the Divorce Reform Union which was in favour of less rigid divorce laws. Doyle suggested that “the grounds for divorce should be the same for men and women, and should include adultery, cruelty, [...], penal servitude and desertion” (Redmond 104). Doyle‟s approach to divorce was liberal; nevertheless, a question arises to what extent it was from his interest in public affairs or a consequence of his own family situation.

In 1897 he met and, “[t]hough a respected pillar of Edwardian society, [...], scandalously fell in love with the much younger woman who would become his second wife, while his first was mortally ill”(Roberts). In public, Doyle claimed that his relationship with Miss Jean Leckie remained platonic from the respect for his wife. But after seven years of relationship with Miss Leckie, he wrote “The Adventure of the

Abbey Grange” where he calls attention to English laws forbidding divorce and their grudging effects on families; and after two years, he became the president of the

Divorce Reform Union. Doyle married Miss Leckie after one year of mourning, in

1907, and had three children with her. Their marriage was reported to be exceptionally happy until Doyle‟s death in 1930.

1 Mrs. Louise Doyle died in 1906.

29 As already suggested, Dr. Doyle was partially a model for Dr. Watson. They both were general practitioners; there is a similarity of their physical features and their approach to women is identical. Watson is always attentive, gallant and tender to the women in the stories. He is more thoughtful and sensitive to female beauty than Holmes and he admits: “I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring” (Doyle 24). Watson describes women‟s charms in detail and speaks admiringly of the beauty of some of their fair clients. He is charmed by Lady Brackenstall (AG) who “was no ordinary person.

Seldom have I seen so graceful a figure, so womanly a presence, and so beautiful a face” (Doyle 641). Unlike Holmes, Watson gets married. In he marries Miss Mary Morstan, “blonde young lady, small, dainty [whose] expression was sweet and amiable, and [whose] large blue eyes were singularly spiritual and sympathetic. [...] I [Watson] have never looked upon a face which gave a clearer promise of a refined and sensitive nature” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four). Miss Morstan is believed to be Miss. Louise Hawkins, since they both were portrayed as tiny and gentle women, blonds and blue-eyed. “Doyle‟s first love become Watson‟s first love”

(Redmond 44). On the other hand, Holmes seems immune to women‟s charms; throughout the stories he remains a confirmed bachelor and keeps his characteristic attitude to women, gentlemanly but remote.

Although an ardent protector of fates of many of his female clients, Helen Stoner

(AOSB), Violet Hunter (CB) and Violet Smith (SC) in particular, Holmes‟s attitude to women is considerably colder. “He disliked and distrusted the sex, but he was always a chivalrous opponent” (Doyle 783). He never hesitates to help a woman thinking that “a gentleman should not lay much stress upon this [personal risk] when a lady is in most desperate need of his help [?]”(Doyle 561). His demeanour towards women is pleasing

30 and he can easily persuade women of his understanding and goodwill. “Holmes had, when he liked, a peculiarly ingratiating way with women, and [that] he very readily established terms of confidence with them” (Doyle 615). Overall he does not think very highly of the sex, save (SIB) who was always “the woman” (Doyle 9) to

Holmes. His feelings to Irene Adler were most resembling love although “[a]ll emotions, and this one particularly [love], were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. [...] He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and sneer. [But this woman] [i]n his eyes [she] eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex” (Doyle 9), deserving such a position as the only woman who manages to outwit the brilliant detective. Throughout the stories, Mrs. Hudson remains the only woman of

Holmes‟s life, “equally ready to provide a fresh plate of rashers and eggs or to shift the figure that Holmes has put into his window to lure ” (Symons 76), and making home for her lodger, tacitly admiring him and thus, to a certain extent, standing for his wife.

Holmes is always attentive to his fair clients but he does not divide his polite manners evenly. Although extremely considerate of Lady Brackenstall (AG), Lady

Hilda Hope (SS), Lady Frances Carfax (DLFC) and Miss de Violet de Merville (“The

Adventure of the Illustrious Client”), his attitude to women from lower classes is remarkably different. To Mrs. Warren, a landlady (RC), he does not hesitate to say that he “cannot see that you [Mrs. Warren] have any particular cause for uneasiness nor do I

[Holmes], whose time is of some value, should interfere in the matter. I really have other things to engage me” (Doyle 749). He smokes in the presence of lower middle- class or working-class women; he calls the working-class women by their first names; he gets engaged to a servant girl who he uses as a source of information, and he abandons her the second his case is solved (“The Adventure of Charles Augustus

31 Milverton”). Nevertheless, Holmes‟s dealing with the lower classes is limited and it is the middle and upper classes that are in the focus in the stories.

II.3 The Case of Middle-Class Women

In his narratives, Watson is very particular about giving an exact picture of the social status of their clients and he always informs readers in detail about the appearance, conduct and in most cases also housing of various classes of English society. The presence of a large number of servants in upper-middle-class families is made clear in “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” where a family consisting of three adult people employ a groom, page, three maid-servants and a waiting-maid. In “The

Adventure of the Crooked Man” a cook, housemaid and a coachman are added to the family and families with children, namely in “The Problem of Thor Bridge” and “The

Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” are further enlarged by a governess and a nurse respectively. The mistress of the house was consequently confined to a role of a supervisor and her active participation in running the household affairs was considerably limited and with the exception of a lively Irene Adler (SIB), Holmes usually finds the upper-middle-class ladies, Mrs. Ferguson (SV), Mrs. Barclay (CM) and Lady Brackenstall (AG) in particular, bedridden, recovering their nerves from an inflicted shock.

The middle-class ideal of at least one servant present in the household is also captured in the stories. The Schlessingers (DLFC) attract attention and arouse suspicion because, although having middle class airs, they do not have any servants. Mrs. Warren

(RC) admits that she is “a poor woman [...] and Mr. Warren earns little” (Doyle 749) but she does not forget to mention that she has a girl to help her with housework and is consequently able to claim a middle-class status. Even a spinster, Miss Cushing (“The

32 Adventure of the Cardboard Box”), who otherwise lives modestly, has a maid giving the small household middle-class respectability.

The woman as the centre of home was another important middle-class concept.

Mr. Windibank (CI) does not want his wife and stepdaughter to go anywhere and his ideas correspond with the ideal of home as a place closed against dangerous outside effects. “He wouldn‟t have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle” (Doyle 54). Calder argues that the

Victorian family was paternalistic but that it “would be a mistake to exaggerate the rigidity of the paternalistic structure of family life, but it certainly could be rigid. It allowed opportunities for the tyrant, and imprisoned the tyrant‟s victims, if husband and father chose to behave thus” (Calder 140). Gregory confirms this theory; “on one hand, the dominant middle-class ideology [in this period] denounced violence in the home. On the other hand, that same ideology also revered absolute privacy of the domestic sphere, preferring to rely on the idea of feminine passivity as well as new forms of masculine authority – rather than public scrutiny – to regulate the home” (331). As a result of the total privacy of the home, Jephro Rucastle (CB) keeps his daughter as prisoner and Dr.

Grimseby Roylott (AOSB) murders one and attempts to murder the other of his stepdaughters. J. Neil Gibson (TB) and Sir Eustace Brackenstall (AG) are deliberately cruel to their wives, Lady Brackenstall even bears traces of physical violence, and although all the servants know about the ill-treating of their mistresses, they remain silent. “Wife and children, and to a certain extent servants who were dependent on employers and good references, had little alternative to staying where they were, however difficult or painful the experience” (Calder 140). In the stories Sherlock

Holmes comes to help the taciturn sufferers and punish those who abuse their

33 dependants; but in real life the fate of ill-treated women and servants were considerably harder, with a small chance of help from outside.

II.4 The Problem of Women’s Employment and Education

Women who do not live quiet lives are rare in the stories explored. Most of the female characters do not work, they are managers of their husbands‟ households and lead respectable lives, spending most of their time at home and hardly ever going out.

Irene Adler (SIB) is an exception since being a singer, she goes out to perform at concerts but otherwise she “lives quietly, [...], drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for dinner. Seldom goes out at other times” (Doyle 18). Doyle does not display women‟s employment at home in the stories examined; and Holmes is not interested in women‟s responsibilities and although he questions his male clients thoroughly about their jobs, his interest in female clients‟ occupations is considerably smaller.

Most of his female clients do not work at all and those who do confirm the fact that professions or trade were closed to women. Irene Adler (SIB) is the only artist, which again makes her figure outstanding among other characters. Mary Sutherland

(CI) represents the category of female clerks, making her living with typewriting, which was a typical female employment at that time. Two of the heroines are teachers, one of them is Violet Hunter (CB), working as a governess, and the other one is Violet Smith

(SC), a music teacher. Another two female characters, Mrs. Warren (RC) and Mrs.

Hudson, are landladies, taking care of their lodgers, performing the household chores for them and thus resembling wives or mothers, creating home for their lodgers. The most frequent woman‟s job in the analysed stories seems to be of a maid or a cook, but, with exception of Theresa (AG) and Dolores (SV), who are companions rather than

34 servants of their mistresses, they always play a minor role and are usually mentioned only as the workforce in a household.

Another occupation Doyle describes as proper for a woman was one involved in any type of social work or charitable organizations. A membership in some of those organizations gave women active fulfilment of their days. Mrs. Barclay (CM)

“interested herself very much in the establishment of the Guild of St. George, which was formed [...] for the purpose of supplying the poor with cast-off clothing” (Doyle

353); Mrs. Hilton Cubitt (DM) “remains a widow, devoting her whole life to the care of the poor” (Doyle 496) and Lady Frances Carfax (DLFC) “found her comfort and occupation in religion” (Doyle 768). With most employment possibilities closed to them, women could not employ themselves otherwise and without any change of approach to women‟s education there could hardly be any hope of improvement.

Further educated women are rarely found in Holmes stories. Violet Hunter (CB) is a governess; she admits that her accomplishments are “[a] little French, a little German, music and drawing” (Doyle 214). These were enough for a governess since they were skills considered proper and desirable for a young lady to obtain. Intelligence and reasoning were considered qualities inherent to men. “The woman”, Irene Adler (SIB), is said to have “the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men” (Doyle 16) but about mental faculties of other women, Holmes is considerably sceptical. He admits that Violet Hunter (CB) is “a quite exceptional woman” (Doyle 226) because she acts like a “brave and sensible girl” (Doyle 226) and he is surprised upon finding “Miss Morrison (CM) [...], a little ethereal slip of a girl [...] by no means wanting in shrewdness and common sense” (Doyle 358). Although a brilliant man, Holmes is a Victorian and as such, he cannot escape being prejudiced in some ways. He clings to the popular belief that women‟s conduct and action are

35 governed by their emotions much more than men. When describing Kitty Winter (“The

Adventure of the Illustrious Client”), Watson remarks that “[t]here was an intensity of hatred on her white, set face and her blazing eyes such as a woman seldom and man never can attain” (Doyle 898). A woman‟s soul was believed to be an undiscovered area; Holmes claims that “woman‟s heart and mind are insoluble puzzles to the male”

(Doyle 896); and that they “lead an inward life and may do things beyond the judgment of a man” (Doyle 836). Women were said to rely on their instincts rather than logical reasoning but this is not considered a flaw by Holmes who admits that he “has seen too much to know that the impression of a woman may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical reasoner” (Doyle 112).Women were not only denied the ability of logic; they were thought, as already stated, less intelligent than men because of the popular belief of that time about the bigger the skull, the bigger the brain and the more intelligent the owner. “„It‟s a question of cubic capacity,‟ said he [Holmes]: „a man with so large a brain must have something in it‟” (Doyle 122). Since women‟s understanding was considered limited, men did not discuss business with their wives.

Sinister consequences are felt by The European Secretary, Tralawny Hope (SS), after his wife takes an important document from him and gives it to a man who is blackmailing her. As an excuse for her conduct, Mrs. Hope uses her own ignorance:

“[I]n a matter of politics I could not understand the consequences, while in a matter of love and trust they were only too clear to me” (Doyle 676). And Holmes finds it a reasonable and understandable excuse and screens the lady, solving the case without exposing her.

36 II.5 The Case of the Woman Criminal

The Case of Mrs. Tralawny Hope (SS) shows that women were not less prone to trespassing the law than men and many Holmes stories prove that all women were not the pure roses society wanted them to be. Irene Adler (SIB) threatens to ruin her former lover, the King of Bohemia, by sending their compromising photograph to his royal fiancée. Mary (BC) steals an expensive piece of jewellery which was pawned to her uncle to give it to her lover. As already mentioned, a similar crime is committed by Mrs.

Tralawny Hope (SS) in order to avoid being blackmailed. Mrs. Hilton Cubitt (DM) was involved in a gang of Chicago; and Mrs. Emilia Lucca (RC) is connected with an infamous gang called Red Circle. Isadora Klein (“The Adventure of the Three Gables”) does not hesitate to hire bullies to frighten Holmes, and burglars to rob a house in order to get what she wants, and Lady Brackenstall (AG) is an accomplice in her husband‟s killing. Finally, Eugenia Ronder (“The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger) and her lover plan and actually kill her husband. Another two murderesses are portrayed in “The

Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez” and “The Adventure of Charles Augustus

Milverton” where women commit felonies, nevertheless, in order to revenge their lover and husband‟s deaths respectively.

In other stories no crime is actually committed, but women are guilty of trespassing moral laws or social standards. The Browners‟ tragedy (“The Adventure of the Cardboard Box”) is caused by two women‟s offences against proper conduct, by

Miss Sarah Cushing‟s falling in love and seducing her sister‟s husband, and by Mrs.

Browner‟s extramarital affair. The mystery in “The Adventure of the Yellow Face”, which almost brings one happy marriage to an end, shows that marriages between people of different races were regarded as immoral and shameful. The woman is afraid to admit that she is guilty of marrying a man of African descent and that their child

37 turns after him. She fears to tell her second husband about her daughter and keeps her very existence secret. The fear of her lapse being made public makes her cover the child‟s face and hands so that nobody in the neighbourhood knows about the child‟s skin colour.

Despite all these cases in which women are connected with crime, Holmes is a supporter of the ideal of faultless Englishwomen. Most of the female criminals or trespassers are either foreigners or Englishwomen who left their country for some time and as such offended the ideal of domesticity. The blackmailer Irene Adler (SIB) was born in New Jersey and lived in Italy and Poland before she settles in England.

Mysterious Mrs. Hilton Cubitt (DM) is American, Mrs. Mary Gibson (TB), who commits suicide in such a way that the suspicion falls on the young governess her husband loves, is Brazilian, the “Sussex vampire”, Mrs. Fergusson, is Peruvian, the lady around whom the Red Circle adventure develops is Italian, Isadora Klein (“The

Adventure of the Three Gables”), the unscrupulous woman who has Holmes bullied and her former lover‟s mother‟s house robbed, is Spanish. When Holmes finds out his countrywoman involved in a hideous conspiracy, he is shocked. “„But how come you into this matter, Miss Burnet?‟ asked Homes. „How can an English lady join in such a murderous affair?‟” (Doyle 704). In spite of Holmes‟s surprise, more of his cases display that not all Englishwomen were submissive, gentle creatures.

It is mainly Charles Augustus Milverton‟s case that indicates single women were not as innocent and incorruptible as the popular belief suggested. Milverton establishes his business on blackmailing women with love letters they wrote to their former male friends. Milverton‟s wealth proves that there were a lot of possibilities of blackmailing women on such grounds and should the letters, and thus their writers, be without any guilt, they would not be willing to pay huge amounts of money to keep Milverton silent.

38 Eduardo Lucas (SS) threatens Mrs. Tralawny Hope that a letter of hers will be shown to her husband. So frightening is this vision that Mrs. Hope steals one of her husband‟s documents and gives it to the blackmailer, as already stated above.

As all these blackmailing cases suggest, reputation was priceless and its loss meant a disaster, in particular for women: “Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into power of Milverton” (Doyle 556).

Women do not hesitate to pay Milverton considerable amounts to prevent making the compromising letters public and thus ruining their prospects. Lady Eva Brackwell

(CAM), who is to be married to the Earl of Dovercout, seeks help at Holmes because

Milverton “has several imprudent letters – imprudent, Watson, nothing worse – which were written to an impecunious young squire in the country. They would suffice to break off the match” (Doyle 557). As an injudicious letter threatens to destroy a prospective marriage, another menaces Mrs. Hope‟s married life (SS). The blackmailer has “an indiscreet letter written before my [Mrs. Hope‟s] marriage – a foolish letter, a letter of an impulsive, loving girl” (Doyle 676). Nevertheless, women‟s respectability and morality were of such importance that any doubtful evidence against those could destroy women‟s lives and prospects for advantageous marriages in particular.

II.6 The Problem of the Woman in Love

An advantageous match remained a target of a considerable number of Victorians and the social class of the partners continued to be one of the crucial factors for choosing one‟s husband or wife. Although, as already mentioned, matches were no longer arranged by parents without any intervention of the young couple, parents still claimed the right to decide about the future spouses for their children. Holmes stories nevertheless prove that at the end of the nineteenth century, children felt free to disobey

39 their parents‟ wishes. Maud Bellany (“The Adventure of the Lion‟s Mane”) is engaged to Fitzroy Mc.Pherson but they keep “it secrete because Fitzroy‟s uncle, who is very old and said to be dying, might have disinherited him if he had married against his wish”

(Doyle 948). Mr. Hilton Cubitt (DM), a member of one of the oldest families in

Norfolk, marries against his family expectations an American girl but nevertheless admits that Holmes “will think it very mad [...] that a man of a good old family should marry a wife in this fashion, knowing nothing of her past or of her people” (Doyle 478).

The situation in royal families was different and their members still had to consider political and dynastic reasons. The King of Bohemia (SIB) cannot marry Irene Adler because “she was not on my [the King‟s] level” (Doyle 26) and although she would

“have made an admirable queen” (Doyle 27), the King marries a daughter of the King of Scandinavia.

As already mentioned, it was considered more degrading for a woman to marry a man from lower social strata and parents usually opposed such matches more strongly.

Despite the fact, Miss Barelli (RC) marries Gennaro Lucca,who “had neither money nor position – nothing but his beauty and strength and energy” (Doyle 763) although her father forbade the match. Miss Hatty Doran (“The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”) is engaged to Frank Moulton but “the richer Pa [Miss Doran‟s father] grew, the poorer was Frank; so at last Pa wouldn‟t hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took me away” (Doyle 187) but the couple married secretly, disregarding the bride‟s father‟s disapproval.

Save royal families, it was usually acceptable if a man did not marry his social equal, especially if the woman brought a considerable wealth into the match. The end of the nineteenth century witnessed “an incursion into the peerage of „new‟ men of large fortunes and little or no land, and a well-publicized wave of noble marriages to [...]

40 American heiresses, „trading titles for dollars‟ as the saying went” (Thompson 106).

The newspaper Holmes is reading in “The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor” proves that such matches came to be less and less unusual:

Lord St. Simon, who has shown himself for over twenty years proof against the

little god‟s arrows, has now definitely announced his approaching marriage with

Miss Hatty Doran, the fascinating daughter of a Californian millionaire. Miss

Doran [...] is an only child, and it is currently reported that her dowry will run to

considerably over the six figures, with expectancies for the future. As it is an open

secret that the Duke of Balmoral has been compelled to sell his pictures [...], it is

obvious that the Californian heiress is not the only gainer by an alliance which

will enable her to make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to

a British title. (Doyle 176)

Holmes‟s cases give another example that not only American women were prompted to marry a British aristocrat. An Australian (AG) marries and English nobleman because there was both “title and money [and] she was born for all that is beautiful and dainty” (Doyle 656). Lady Brackenstall, however, experiences not only the social advancement that such a match brings; she also comes to realize how difficult it was for a woman to escape from a marriage that proves a failure.

II.7 The Issues of Women of Property and Divorce

Divorce was not a topic that was discussed widely at the end of the nineteenth century. “There was a great anxiety amongst most women to get married, and a tendency to believe that those who were lucky enough to marry should not complain if marriage turned out to be less than they had hoped” (Calder 125). People usually kept quiet about problems they experienced at home and so do Doyle‟s characters. Mr.

41 Ferguson (SV) even pretends that he acts on behalf of a client of his in order not to confess to his own marital problems; and the case of obvious female adultery in “The

Adventure of the Cardboard Box” is discreetly referred to as jealousy by Holmes. But

Lady Bracknell (AG) does not try to pretend that her marriage is happy. She discloses that her husband was a drunkard and that life with him was a trial and she complains loudly about the character of English law. “It is a sacrilege, a crime, a villainy to hold that such a marriage is binding. I say that these monstrous laws of yours will bring a curse upon the land” (Doyle 643). As already mentioned, Doyle‟s approach to divorce was liberal and consequently, Holmes screens Lady Bracknell and does not inform the police about the real murderer.

Doyle was not interested only in the laws concerning marriage and divorce. In his stories he also displays the influence of property laws that were passed in the second half of the nineteenth century. Four of the stories analysed, “A Case if Identity”, “The

Adventure of the Speckled Band”, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” and “The

Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist” “revolve around the struggle of an older man (men) to wrest an inheritance away from a young woman” (Hall 296). Mary Sutherland‟s stepfather (CI) does not want to lose one hundred pounds a year which she gives to him while she is living at home and which she would take away if she got married. He therefore does not want her to go out to meet people of her age and when he cannot keep her at home any longer, he disguises himself and acts as a suitor who abandons

Miss Sutherland before their wedding and thus discourages her from looking for a husband for some time. Jephro Rucastle (CB) keeps his daughter as prisoner at home to prevent her from taking money, left by her mother, from him to her husband. Dr.

Grimseby Roylott (AOSB) kills one and attempts to kill the other stepdaughter so that they could not get married and take the money from their mother‟s inheritance with

42 them. Miss Violet Smith (SC) is left a considerable fortune by her uncle and two of his cohorts come to marry Miss Smith before she learns about the inheritance. One of them finally kidnaps her and violently makes her marry him. Nevertheless, the marriage is not biding since “forced marriage is no marriage, but it is a very serious felony” (Doyle

643). Although “The Women Property Acts of 1870-1882 allowed women both to own and inherit property independently of their fathers or husbands” (Hall 296), “The

Adventure of the Yellow Face” suggests that some women continued to entrust money to their husbands as Mrs. Effie Munro makes over all her property to her husband but is ensured by him that she can ask for it any time for it is all hers.

Although from the latter second half of the nineteenth century women could dispose of their property freely, it did not help women make their own establishment, since in well-established families real property continued to be inherited by men. “Lady

Frances (DLFC) [...] is the sole survivor of the direct family of the late Earl of Rufton.

The estates went [...] in the male line. She was left with limited means, but with some very remarkable old Spanish jewellery” (Doyle 767). According to Holmes, a rich unmarried middle-aged woman is “one of the most dangerous classes in the world [...], she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. [...] She is a stray chicken in a world of foxes” (Doyle 767). The image of a woman lost in the dangerous world outside her home was a typical one of the Victorian era. Nevertheless, the young, brave heroines from some of Holmes stories, “the woman”, Irene Adler (SIB); the solitary cyclist, Violet Smith (SC); or the courageous governess Violet Hunter (CB) prove that there were courageous women who were able to take care of themselves and find their way in the world.

43 CONCLUSION

Social class, cult of domesticity, education, employment, marriage and property rights were important concepts for the Victorians and were very often discussed in connection with women. In my thesis I examine how these concepts and female characters are represented in Doyle‟s Sherlock Holmes Stories.

Noblewomen and women from upper-middle and middle classes are in focus of

Holmes stories. Doyle confirms that servants were indispensable in Victorian homes and that upper-class families had a considerable number of them. The Holder family

(BC), consisting of three adult people, is enlarged by six servants; The Barclays (CM), a middle-aged couple, employ three and families with children, the Fergusons (SV) and the Gibsons (TB), have a governess and a nurse to look after their offspring. The necessity of at least one servant for claiming the middle-class status is shown in Mrs.

Warren‟s case (RC) who, although quite poor, has one maid to assist her in the household; and the conspicuous absence of servants at the Schlessingers„ household

(DLFC) helps solve the mystery.

Doyle‟s female characters also serve as evidence in support of the cult of domesticity. Home was the place where women belonged and its privacy was inviolable. Mr. Windibank (CI) openly expresses the general opinion of women‟s complete happiness within her family circle and forbids his stepdaughter to go out.

Fathers-tyrants, represented by Jephro Rucastle (CB) and Grimseby Roylott (AOSB), and husbands-tyrants, Sir Eustace Brackenstall (AG) in particular, show how easy it was for men in patriarchal society to abuse their power.

Doyle shows little interest in female employment both within home and outside it.

He nevertheless confirms the fact that most women did not work and those who did

44 were engaged in occupations considered natural for women. Doyle‟s heroines are typists (Mary Sutherland, CI), teachers (Violet Smith, SC) and governesses (Violet

Hunter, CB). His stories capture a large number of landladies and maids but with the exception of Mrs. Hudson, Holmes‟s landlady, they are not given much attention. The importance of charity work for women is also proved in Doyle‟s stories. Three of his upper middle-class heroines in the stories analysed are engaged in charity work of some kind. Mrs. Barclay (CM), Mrs. Hilton Cubitt (DM) and Lady Frances Carfax (DLFC) prove that it was quite common for upper-class ladies to employ themselves in religious or charity organizations.

With limited education that most Victorian women received, it was difficult to find any other employment. Further educated women are rare in the stories, which only confirms the reality of the end of the nineteenth century. Studying was believed to be too encumbering for women‟s bodies intended for child bearing and not for learning.

Women‟s intelligence was an object of prejudice and Holmes also thinks that human intelligence depends on the cubic capacity of the skull.

In Holmes stories, Doyle also reflects the myth of English women as pure, incorruptible roses. Holmes is a supporter of this myth; he is shocked at finding an

Englishwoman involved in a murderous conspiracy (“Wisteria Lodge”). On the other hand, Doyle provides enough examples to deduce that Victorian women were not the saints the society wanted them to be. Doyle shows women stealing, blackmailing, bullying and killing and women writing imprudent letters to their lovers. Mrs. Hope

(SS), Irene Adler (SIB), Isadora Klein (“The Adventure of the Three Gables”), Eugenia

Ronder (“The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger) and Lady Eva Brackwell (CAM) prove that women, incorruptible pure roses, were the mythical ideal, not a reality.

45 Marriage, one of the most important concepts in lives of Victorian women, is not neglected in Holmes stories either. Doyle shows that the social status and wealth of partners was still very important. At the same time Doyle proves that it was possible for young people to disregard their parents‟ opinion concerning future spouses and that marriages negotiated by parents only were not found in the second half of the nineteenth century. Miss Hatty Doran (“The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor”) marries secretly disregarding her father‟s disapproval and so does Miss Barelli (RC). Royal marriages were the only exception; their members could not choose their partners freely but had to bear in mind political and dynastic reasons, as proved in “The Scandal in Bohemia”. In his stories, Doyle also reflects the common practice of marriages between British aristocrats, not necessarily rich, and American heiresses, not necessarily of aristocratic background yet of considerable fortune. Lord St. Simon (“The Adventure of the Noble

Bachelor”) marries the only daughter of an American mining king who has become rich only recently. On the other hand, a member of an old aristocratic family is made to sell his pictures. The mutual benefit of such a match is clearly stated in the story.

Another point on which Doyle focuses is the change in women‟s rights caused by

The Married Women‟s Property Acts of 1870-1882. In “The Adventure of the Yellow

Face” Doyle shows that a married woman was now to freely dispose of the money she had brought to the marriage. In a different place Doyle elaborates on how desperately some fathers, Jephro Rucastle (CB) and Grimseby Roylott (AOSB) in particular, try to secure the money their daughters are about to take from them on the occasion of their marriage.

In his stories, Doyle portrays numerous women and shows what their lives were like at the end of the Victorian era. He describes women at home, at work, single and married. Wherever in the stories female characters appear and whatever their actions

46 are, they are depicted realistically and reflect the social situation. Doyle captures faithfully the social changes of that time and how those affected women‟s lives. Readers can learn about the era and its women and, as a result, Holmes stories might be considered not only as texts for men and about men, but also for women and about women. This gives the stories a new dimension.

47 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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49 APPENDIX: THE STORIES SELECTED AND THEIR ABBREVIATIONS

AG ...... “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” (1904)

AOSB ...... “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (1892)

BC ...... “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet” (1892)

CAM ...... “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” (1904)

CB ...... “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches” (1892)

CI ...... “A Case of Identity” (1891)

CM ...... “The Adventure of the Crooked Man” (1893)

DLFC ...... “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” (1911)

DM ...... “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” (1903)

RC ...... “The Adventure of the Red Circle” (1911)

SC ...... “The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist” (1903)

SIB ...... “A Scandal in Bohemia” (1891)

SS ...... “The Adventure of the Second Stain” (1904)

SV ...... “The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire” (1924)

TB ...... “The Problem of Thor Bridge” (1922)

50