Apr 09 2020
Marriage and the Novel
If you were able to join the Zoom session on Tuesday, you’ll know that we ended by talking about the centrality of marriage both to The Woman of Colour and to Austen’s novels. While there are a lot of similarities across the novels (including an interest in both the legal and economic significance of marriage, especially for women), I pointed out one key difference we might pay closer attention to: the central marriage in The Woman of Colour takes place not at the end (as Austen leads us to expect) but in the middle, just before the end of volume I.
Next week, we’ll focus our attention on the second volume of The Woman of Colour and the aftermath of that mid-plot marriage. Because the second half of the novel contains a number of surprises, I’ll urge you to finish reading before our Wednesday (4/15) discussion. Some other advice to prepare:
- If you didn’t get a change to listen when we talked about Emma, or if you’ve forgotten, listen to this fascinating history podcast on marriage law. (You can also read the transcript on the post.)
2. If you find the time, think back to some of the other marriage or proposal scenes we’ve read so far this semester.
For Monday, April 13, write a response to this post that in some way thinks through the questions raised by marriage in these novels, especially The Woman of Colour. Your response should refer to at least one passage from the novel. I’ll synthesize these so that we can focus on those passages in our Wednesday discussion.
9 Responses to “Marriage and the Novel”
The way in which the author of “The Woman of Colour” set up the common theme of marriage in this novel, I found to be not only extremely successful but a more accurate depiction of marriage than Austen’s novels represent. One of the major differences, as discussed last class, was that in “The Woman of Colour” the marriage between Augustus and Olivia occurs right in the middle of the novel, unlike Austen’s marriages which are always saved until the very end. I think both Austen and this author are bringing up questions in regards to marriage in both novels, but in regards to accuracy, I think “The Woman of Colour” highlights a more realistic and feminine-driven viewpoint. One of the issues I had with the Austen novels we read was that Austen is depicting realistic accounts of couples and marriages that are saved until the very end of her novels, but where there doesn’t seem to be any options for the characters besides getting married. The author of “The Woman of Colour” goes about this in a very different way. Shortly after Vol. II begins, Olivia and Augustus’ marriage ends due to Angelina and Augustus’ already being married. The point is however, that this does not have to be the end of the narrative for Olivia. She can still be happy and be viewed as a strong woman without a husband. This is where I find the novel to be very feminist-driven. Olivia decides herself that she does not need a husband and she wants to only be remembered as the widow of Augustus. I think that there is a few problems with this idea but the message behind it is strong. Even towards the very end when Mr.Honeywood professes his love for Olivia, she doesn’t want him (anymore, like she had when the novel began). Olivia stays true to herself and her beliefs and tells Mr.Honeywood, “Consider my situation, impartially and coolly, and see if I should not suffer in your opinion, were i to act in any way but the one I have fixed on; that one which my judgement approves, and which my heart must ever ratify!” (165). She explains how although this marriage and the life she had agreed to didn’t work out she is going to see it through because it is the life she choose. By her saying this, it makes total sense why the marriage would be in the middle of the novel, because marriage isn’t the end result for all women. Olivia by the end of the novel gets to finally go back to Jamaica and see her dear Mrs. Milbanke, making the end of this novel conclude with an emphasis on the power of friendship rather than marriage.
This novel, unlike many of Austen’s novels, concerns itself with marriage and separation. Where Austen is deeply interested in marriage as an endgame, such as in Emma and Mansfield Park, the author of The Woman of Colour sees it a bit different. In that sense, I agree with Jordan’s post and would like to point out a particular passage that stood out to me where Olivia says “I feel something of comfort tranquilizing my mind, when I reflect, that distresses are not deducible from my own misconduct; that I can meet the maternal and inquiring eye of my best friend, and fearless say, “I am still your own Olivia Fairfield.” (Page 146). This passage stuck out to me because like my other classmates have said, it highlights a theme in the novel that portrays marriage and separation as only part of the story–not the whole picture. Olivia realizes she has the ability to continue on, and still be herself, despite her past grievances involving her marriage. Olivia does not have to be married for her story to end, and it is only when she reconnects with her best friend in Jamaica does the story conclude. Austen comes close to this in Emma, but seems to double back when she chooses to have Emma marry Mr.Knightley. Her other protagonists like Catherine and Fanny are fixated on male figures early on, and eventually end up marrying these figures. I’m not necessarily shaming Austen for this approach, but I’m instead delighted in the change of narrative within The Woman of Colour. Although the prose reads like an Austen novel, the themes within the novel certainly differ from Austen’s–taking an even greater step toward a more feminist portrayal of the English woman belonging to that time.
I think marriage taking place in the middle of the novel makes a point that is strong despite its subtle placement. When Austen, and many authors like her at the time, wrote novels, the objective for the female protagonists was marriage. The big goal of life was to find someone to marry who would be wealthy enough to ensure you didn’t have to work and would be taken care of and blah blah blah. However, in The Woman Of Colour, it takes place at a random point in the middle of the novel. Marriage did not have to be a life-consuming chore for women. It did not have to be the end of their lives. They could get married and still have substantial meaning to their own individual lives. The quote Cedeem points out is the same I was thinking of on page 146 “I am still your own Olivia Fairfield” . Olivia is determined to hold onto her own identity, both within her race and just as a human being with rights and a life outside of marriage. She still experiences life and continues to search for her own satisfaction that, unlike Austen’s novels, she eventually finds outside of romantic relationships and marriage but through a connection with her new home and culture in Jamaica. This definitely highlights where this author and Austen differ on the types of lives they presented in their novels for their readers.
At first I thought the woman of Colour was just like the typical Austen Novel but Upon reaching the middle point of the book my view started to change a little bit. With many of Austen’s Novels marriage is a central theme. The romance is told with marriage as the end goal in mind. In “Women of Colour” the marriage plot point felt like more of a litmus test for the main heroine. Her letters to her Mrs. Milbanke offer us a window into the main character’s thoughts and feelings in a way that we couldn’t with other Austen protagonists. With this approach, Olivia’s insecurities take center stage and her personal growth take priority over the marriage plot. When she gets the surprise that she isn’t legally married to Augustus in the latter portion of the novel it becomes a reality that she must cope with. In a show of her growth she is shown to accept it in stride. “Heaven is my witness! cried I. I consider Augustus Merton the husband of Angelina ,that for the ‘wealth of words’ I will not interrupt their happiness.” Though she is still heartbroken she uses her time with the Honeywoods as a time to get her individuality. Even at the end of the novel when she could of pursued a relationship with Honeywood she chose not to in favor of her own freedom. In going back to Jamaica and being with her friend she chose herself over a society that disadvantaged her.
If there’s one thing The Woman of Color and all the Jane Austen novels we’ve read so far have in common is that they paint a pretty critical picture of the idea of marriage in general. I don’t believe they come right out and say that marriage is bad but they’re all very clear about the consequences of a poorly thought out or toxic matrimony. In the case of The Woman of Colour, the entire relationship between Olivia and Augustus pains a pretty powerful and clear picture about the dangers of marrying without love. One could argue that at the very least the characters of Emma ended up with husbands who gave two cents about them. But Olivia’s fate seems to be worse than slavery itself, an idea she agrees with very much given the fact that she thinks “Servitude, slavery, in its worst form, would be preferable to finding myself the wife of a man by whom I was not beloved!” (86) and she’s quite right. The anonymous author knew that marriage wasn’t always an escape from the troubles if life like it was in some of Jane Austen’s novels. It’s a different interpretation of what could go wrong. While I don’t believe this makes Austen’s interpretations of marriage any less realistic or plausible, this is certainly a different take. A take that, while uncomfortable, needs to be acknowledged. One example of just how loveless the marriage is compared to Austen’s marriages is later in the book when Olivia realizes that Augustus is already married. “His wife—his wife!” cried I, “is it not so? Great God! Then what am I?” (142) Well she spent so much of the novel trying to make the most out of her terrible situation being that was such an awful truth is only symptomatic of an even bigger issue here. That issue being a forced marriage that nobody could salvage.
In Austen’s novels there are always obstacles in the venture of getting married. In Northanger Abbey those are: misconceptions, and a wild imagination, then a fear of rejection for it. In the beginning of Mansfield Park it is jealousy and unrequited love. In Emma, utter ignorance to love until the very last moment. It is interesting that the first two novels we’ve read name locations as their titles while Emma and The Woman of Colour feature female characters as their titles. Unlike the two others we’ve read where marriage was not blatantly rejected in any way The Woman of Colour is the exact opposite of Emma where Emma declines marriage at first until she realizes her love for Mr. Knightley, instead Olivia has found love, but then must abandon it. The titles highlight these women and their decisions as the most important aspect whereas, it is the circumstances of the other novels that primarily guide their thoughts, emotions, and ultimately, their decisions.
The strength in Emma is that she decides to marry in the end. The strength in Olivia is that she decides to relinquish her position as a wife, and there is also her decision to not reject the identity. Olivia refuses to interject in the relationship or come between the married couple and bids them happiness. He is not actually her husband, even when they are first married yet, she still considers herself and her heart as belonging to him. “I now, and to the last moment of my existence, shall consider myself the widowed wife of Augustus Merton!” P165 While she ventures off on her own journey she will never truly be independent of her identity as a wife.
In Woman of Colour marriage as a legal and a religious matter is an obstacle, but Olivia choses to see herself as she wishes regardless. The title being “The Woman of Colour” and not “Olivia”, highlights a different aspect of her identity, not that of a wife or widow, and not her as an individual, but her physical image. It convolutes whether readers should pay attention to seeing what lies beneath the surface of her situation or what lies beneath who she appears to be.
The main difference I spotted between Austen’s novels and “The Woman of Colour” regarding marriage, concurs with the notion mentioned in “Coverture: Married Women and Legal Personhood in Britain” by a Stuart-era jurist that women were classed as either “married or to bee[sic] married.” Their entire identity rested on their marital status, and then it morphed into the identity of their husbands, because then they were known by their husband’s name. This morphing of identity kind of never happens with Olivia in “The Woman of Colour”, because she always retains the name of Fairchild. Even when she is married, Augustus takes her last name. By placing that marriage in the middle of the book, rather than at the end, like Austen’s novels, we see how Olivia retains her identity before, during, and after marriage, which is almost unheard of in this time period. Austen’s novels so far ending in marriages seem to say that that is the end of a woman’s story. But not so for our Olivia. Even though she professes that “I now, and to the last moment of my existence, shall consider myself the widowed wife of Augustus Merton!” (165), according to the laws explained in the article, she technically reverts back to being a single woman because she is a widow. She is happy to remain that way, even refusing the hand of Honeywood, and remain under her own control. In some ways being married to Augustus did her a favor, by giving her the chance to be considered a widow, she reclaims her ability to choose.
Perhaps a notable Gothic element to /The Woman of Colour/ can be attributed to marriage itself. It is certainly the demise to Olivia Fairfield’s transient happiness in the time she was the wife of Augustus Merton. This marriage was arranged by her late father, evident as she narrates: “I see that he meant at once to secure his child a proper protector in a husband, and to place her far from scenes which were daily hurting her sensibility and the pride of human nature!” (55) In short, her father wanted to arrange her marriage to her white first-cousin to secure protection in a society where she would not be degraded for her skin color. In this way, the author is toying with the idea of race and status in society: Olivia Fairfield would be wedded to a white man, which would elevate her racial stature. More complex is the factor that Olivia Fairfield’s marriage would enable her future husband to assets that she is bind to. In her letter to Mrs. Milbanke, she confirms: “I bear with me a dower of nearly sixty thousand pounds, which is to become the property of my cousin Augustus Merton on his becoming my husband, and taking the name of Fairfield, within one month after my arrival in England.” (60) I believe the author’s goal is to place a heavy critique on property law within marriage during the time period that the novel was written in. And the author uses the betrayal of a sweet and pious mulatto woman, severely wronged, in order to assert this criticism of the law. In her early letters, the doubt of the marriage to a man she has never met is obvious when she further writes: “I could have placed myself in some tranquil nook of my native island, and have been happily and usefully employed in meliorating the sorrows of the poor slaves who came within my reach, and in pouring into their bruised souls the sweet consolations of religious hope!” (56) Like Emma Woodhouse, Olivia Fairfield considers the fact that she did not have an urgency to be wedded. Yet, her father sought to protect her status as a woman of a mixed-race by ensuring her marriage to a white man. This plan ultimately did not end well, and is a further critique on the author’s behalf on the common practice of having a woman’s marriage arranged to a man who she is not familiar with. Olivia’s return to Jamaica, unmarried, is beautiful in the fact that she exercises a free will that was essentially taken away upon her expectation to consent to the arranged marriage in the beginning of the novel. One element of Olivia’s character that really stood out to me was her reliance on God, which gave her the strength she needed to move forward from the betrayal of Augustus Merton. Is there a movie version of this book?
Throughout reading Austen’s novels, it has been become a theme of questioning whether Austen’s approach was feministic or not, but this was not a question when it came to the author’s approach in The Woman of Colour. I’ve found that other than Emma, female characters throughout Austen’s novels strive to be married, and it is apparent that without marriage these characters believed their lives to be unfulfilled or unimportant. It is also notable that unlike Austen’s works, The Woman of Colour does not simply end after Olivia gets married, for Olivia there is a significant life to be lived and followed after marriage. Austen seems to focus on the life of her protagonists leading up to marriage, but leaves out what follows thereafter. In this respect, I find The Woman of Colour to be a more accurate depiction of the life and choices of a woman.
I found Austen’s heroines to lack goals other than marriage, where as Olivia is portrayed as a strong central character with goals surpassing marriage or romance. What stood out particularly to me was the interaction between Mr. Honeywood and Olivia, when he professes his feelings of love for. Olivia does not stray from her stance of remaining Augustus’ widow, she says, “I have struggled to sustain my suffering with fortitude, and with consistency of character. Consider my situation, impartially and coolly, and see if I should not suffer in your opinion, were I to act in any way but the one I have fixed on (165).” This statement Olivia delivered to a man showing such affection toward her displays her strength and resilience to stay true to what she wants in her life. This interaction fortifies the concept that women have a choice, and marriage is not always the choice best suited. This novel’s theme of marriage is not the main focus, the focus is on Olivia’s ability to make decisions for herself without conforming to female ideals.