PRIVILEGE AND POVERTY UNDER PATRIARCHY - DIVA PORTAL

FACULTY OF EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STUDIES
                   Department of Humanities

   Privilege and Poverty under Patriarchy

An Intersectional Feminist Analysis of the Portrayal of Wives and
         Mothers in Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South

                         Louise Olander

                                2021

                  Student thesis, Bachelor degree, 15 HE
                                  English

                         English (61-90) 30.0 hp

                       Supervisor: Marko Modiano
                        Examiner: Iulian Cananau

Abstract

Building on previous feminist literary criticism of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South
(1854-55), this essay analyses the portrayal of wives and mothers in the novel from an
intersectional feminist perspective. It examines how the narrative shows that gender and
economic status or class intersect to create varied representations of Victorian women’s
marginalisation. The analysis argues that the novel, on the one hand, depicts wives and
mothers as united by their status as “the other” in patriarchal Victorian society. On the
other hand, the novel juxtaposes economically privileged and poor wives and mothers to
show that they are not equally isolated, powerless, or willing to comply with Victorian
gender roles. The result is a complex and empathetic portrayal of wives and mothers’
privilege and poverty under patriarchy, which challenges the Victorian ideal of wives and
mothers as “angels in the house”.

Keywords: Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, the Victorian novel, feminism,
intersectionality, marriage, motherhood, class, gender roles, angel in the house

Table of Contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1
2. Intersectional Feminist Theory ..................................................................................... 3
3. Previous Literary Criticism of North and South........................................................... 6
4. Wives and Mothers as “the Other” in North and South ............................................. 10
5. The Privilege of Money: Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw, and Edith ................................ 16
6. Poverty and Protest: Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher ....................................................... 22
7. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 27
Works Cited .................................................................................................................... 30

1. Introduction

Elizabeth Gaskell’s contribution to English literature has been likened to that of Charles

Dickens and George Eliot in its commitment to portraying Victorian society realistically

and eliciting sympathy for characters and social reforms (Moore 40). North and South

(1854-55) is one of Gaskell’s most widely read works (Stoneman, “Elizabeth Gaskell”

78). Set in the fictional northern town of Milton, it centres on the love story between the

southern gentlewoman Margaret Hale and the northern millowner John Thornton. It is

both a romance and a realist narrative (Brown 345), a female Bildungsroman and a

social-problem novel examining the effects of industrialisation on English society

(Moore 40-41; Stoneman, Introduction vii-ix).

       Despite its stereotypically masculine industrial setting, North and South is

primarily a women-focused novel (Brown 347). In addition to its unmarried heroine, the

novel contains many prominent female characters, most of whom are wives and

mothers. Unlike in some of Gaskell’s other novels, such as Ruth (1853), which features

an unwed mother (Swindells 107), all mothers in North and South are wives or widows.

Equally, all married women are mothers. Some of them, like Margaret’s Aunt Shaw, her

cousin Edith, and the working-class Mrs Boucher, are peripheral yet complexly drawn

characters. Others, like Margaret’s and John’s mothers Mrs Hale and Mrs Thornton, are

key characters who propel the narrative. For example, it is Mrs Hale’s illness which

forces Margaret out into the city, where she meets people of other classes (Gaskell 68)

and gets caught in a workers’ riot (162), thus contributing to her personal and political

development. Similarly, Mrs Thornton acts as audience to her son’s ruminations and is

the one who, reluctantly, encourages his proposal to Margaret (176).

       Evidently, wives and mothers are important in North and South. However,

surprisingly little research has focused on these characters, even though women’s
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condition in the novel has been subject to much feminist literary criticism. This essay

enters into conversation with extant research and applies an intersectional feminist

perspective to analyse the portrayal of wives and mothers in a novel where both gender

and class are central subjects. How does the novel’s portrayal of wives and mothers

show the interplay between gender and economic status or class in determining their

different female experiences?

       This essay argues that North and South offers a complex and empathetic

portrayal of wives and mothers’ experiences under both patriarchy and capitalism. The

novel suggests that wives and mothers are united by their unjust oppression as “the

other” in patriarchal Victorian society. Yet, the novel also separates and juxtaposes

economically privileged and disadvantaged wives and mothers to show that not all

Victorian women are equally “devalued, disenfranchised, and distanced” (Dunst 68).

Privileged wives and mothers are less marginalised and isolated and have comparatively

more power and agency than their poor sisters, who are oppressed by both capitalism

and patriarchy. Nevertheless, poor wives and mothers show a greater propensity to

protest the patriarchal Victorian “angel in the house” ideal.

       The next section presents the theoretical framework of the essay, followed by a

brief review of previous literary criticism to contextualise the analysis. The following

three sections analyse the novel, starting by showing how privileged and poor wives and

mothers are united by their gendered otherhood, then examining how they differ.

Finally, the conclusion reflects on the results of close reading from a feminist

perspective.

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2. Intersectional Feminist Theory

This essay employs a feminist approach to literary analysis. It aligns itself with a strain

of criticism that elucidates how women’s experiences are represented in literature,

especially by women writers themselves (Barry 124-126; Eagleton 1). Several key

feminist concepts will be used in the following analysis. Notably, the pervasiveness of

inequality between women and men in Western society is explained with reference to

“patriarchy”, a social system that gives men power and keeps women economically,

socially, and politically oppressed (Barry 124; Tyson 85-86, 92). Patriarchy

marginalises women as “the other” and dictates a perception of men as the norm (Tyson

92). Under patriarchy, women are considered inherently inferior and are mainly defined

based on their difference or lack compared to men (Barry 135; Tyson 85, 92, 96).

Feminist criticism aims to highlight and challenge women’s unjust otherhood and

through reading of literary texts expose and undermine patriarchal power relations

(Barry 135; Tyson 92-94). Feminism wants to reclaim women’s agency, i.e., their

ability to interact with the world as subjects, not as men’s others (McNay 39-40).

       Women’s otherhood is explored by Simone de Beauvoir, who notes that

patriarchy considers men to be subjects with autonomous identities, while women are

contingent creatures defined in relation to men (de Beauvoir 25-26; Tyson 96).

Feminists like de Beauvoir disagree with patriarchy’s essentialisation of women as

naturally different and/or inferior to men (de Beauvoir 330). This is reflected in the

common feminist belief that gender and biological sex are distinct; gender roles are

socially constructed and stereotypically feminine and masculine traits, like maternal

nurture vs. paternal protection, do not naturally belong to any one sex (Barry 132, 134;

Tyson 85-87, 96-97, 103). Feminists like de Beauvoir allow that women can espouse

patriarchal values and contribute to oppression, for example by internalising gender
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roles and not taking existential responsibility for their own subjectivity by challenging

patriarchal norms (de Beauvoir 30; Bergoffen and Burke; Tyson 85). Women’s lack of a

shared narrative has historically stopped them uniting against patriarchy and has led

them to identify more with men of their own class than with women from other walks of

life (de Beauvoir 28; Tyson 97).

       De Beauvoir’s theories have been important for the development of modern

feminism but have also been criticised (Bergoffen and Burke). For example, even

within feminism, some oppose the idea that constructed gender and not sex matters

most for explaining all socially relevant distinctions between women and men (Tyson

103). This essay acknowledges such criticism and recognises the difficulty of

categorically settling the biology vs. social conditioning debate. However, de Beauvoir

appreciates how social structures have exploited and exaggerated sexual differences to

marginalise women historically (Bergoffen and Burke), which is highly relevant for

analysing a realist work depicting Victorian women’s lives. When analysing a novel

coloured by an era where women were legally and politically disenfranchised

(Steinbach 2), social gender is arguably a more pertinent category than sex for

understanding women’s lived experience of otherhood.

       Adding to de Beauvoir’s theories, Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of

“intersectionality” (140) has recently been brought to the fore within modern feminism.

Feminism has long been conscious of women’s varied experiences (Tyson 105-106),

but intersectionality captures how multiple factors in addition to gender, especially race

but also social class, sexuality etc., intersect to create various female experiences of

subjugation, while avoiding the thorny issue of which, if any, of these categories is the

primary basis for oppression in a given context (Allen; Sisson Runyan; Tyson 93).

Intersectionality is “a method and a disposition, a heuristic and analytical tool”

(Carbado et al. 303), applicable to multiple disciplines (305). Intersectional feminism
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encourages female solidarity, while recognising that not all women’s experiences are

the same. It argues that women have different privileges and disadvantages and may

suffer from overlapping inequalities. According to intersectional feminism, differences

as well as similarities must be acknowledged and addressed in the struggle to achieve

equality for all women (Sisson Runyan).

       This essay employs an intersectional feminist perspective to integrate a focus on

economic status and class into the analysis of wives and mothers’ experiences in North

and South, without making a judgement about whether class or gender oppression is

more fundamental in society overall. In so doing, this essay complements its feminist

toolbox with a broadly Marxist lens through which to consider the novel’s content. This

involves an appreciation of the importance of material conditions, distribution of labour,

unequal economic power, capitalist exploitation, class, and class struggle for explaining

societal structures (Barry 159-160, 170; Tyson 53-54, 65).

       Moreover, this essay draws on ideas developed by materialist feminism, also

known as Marxist feminism. Materialist feminism focuses on how women are

oppressed socially and economically, constituting a lower class within families parallel

to the overall class structures in society (Allen; Tyson 96). It argues that the “public

sphere” of remunerated productive labour and economic decision-making belongs to

men under patriarchy. Women are relegated to the domestic “private sphere” where they

perform unpaid “reproductive” labour, like housework and childcare, which is essential

for maintaining capitalism but is not valued as economically important (Ferguson et al.;

Tyson 97-98). Women, especially as wives and mothers, are also expected to perform

“emotional labour” (Russell Hochschild 8). This involves suppressing one’s feelings to

give others selfless support, naturally and unquestioningly without monetary reward

(Russell Hochschild 8; Schroeder 462-464).

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Consequently, according to materialist feminists like Christine Delphy, marriage

is an unequal labour contract, whereby women’s labour is exploited in the “domestic

mode of production” and men hold most of the economic power (18, 99). Patriarchy

expects men to provide for their wives financially, but not to pay them in accordance

with the quality and quantity of their work. From an intersectional perspective,

women’s economic oppression contributes to their lack of autonomy in a dual capitalist

and patriarchal society (Tyson 94, 96-105) and has historically contributed to women’s

status as male property (Guillaumin 73-74; Tyson 99).

       Critics may question if materialist feminism is relevant in the post-equal

suffrage era, since women are now more included in the public sphere. Suffice it to say

that while many women in the West today support themselves in productive work,

unpaid reproductive labour is still disproportionately carried out by women (Ferrant et

al. 1). Moreover, such objections do not detract from the suitability of using materialist

feminism to analyse a novel set in the Victorian era, when most productive workers

were men, and many women were legally and socially prevented from supporting

themselves financially (Steinbach 9-12). In sum, this essay will use the abovementioned

classic feminist concepts together with select ideas from Marxism and materialist

feminism as an intersectional toolbox, adapted to analyse the novel within its historical

context. Against this theoretical background, the next section will discuss some research

on North and South to contextualise the subsequent analysis.

3. Previous Literary Criticism of North and South

In studying Victorian realist novels like North and South, feminists have used the

perspectives explained in the previous section to elucidate Victorian writers’ concern

with “the Woman Question”: what it meant to be a woman in the nineteenth century and
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how women were considered different from men (Langland 381-382; Schor 173). For

example, the “courtship plot” is an important subject in Victorian novels (Moore 77).

Since mainly working-class women earned money in the public sphere, women’s

private lives, their decision to marry for economic or romantic reasons, and the

consequences of doing neither became a common theme in Victorian novels about

bourgeois heroines (Lambert; Moore 77-78; Stubbs xiii, 3). Elaine Showalter identifies

the period between 1840-1880, when Gaskell was writing, as the “feminine phase”, in

which female writers adapted to the artistic and moral conventions of the patriarchal

literary canon, before moving to the more critical “feminist phase” of the late Victorian

and Edwardian eras (Barry 125; Showalter 13).

          North and South has been widely studied from several critical perspectives,

including with a gender focus. Feminists of the 1970s opposed Gaskell’s lack of overt

commitment to women’s liberation (Stoneman, Introduction viii). However, in later

years, scholars like Patsy Stoneman have re-evaluated the feminist credentials of North

and South (Introduction viii, xvi-xvii), even claiming that it “anticipates … modern

feminist theory” (“Elizabeth Gaskell” 90). Feminist critics have mainly focused on the

heroine Margaret and how her independence and mobility challenge Victorian gender

roles (see for example Alban 51-58; Alexander 3-17; Fair 222-225; Harman 361-374;

Parkins 507-519; Schor 178-180; Stoneman, Introduction xiv-xv). Some have argued

that the novel shows how limited women’s choices were in the 1850s (Brown 347, 255),

and that Margaret’s freedom is curtailed by Victorian society’s demand for emotional

labour (Schroeder 461-472), as well as its propensity to sexual shaming (Harman 365-

374; Stoneman, “Elizabeth Gaskell” 86), and violations of the female body (Reeder

pars. 1-26). A complimentary strain of feminist scholarship has studied the novel’s

problematisation of Victorian masculinity (see Lowe 57-104; Malay 41-59; Wootton

25-35).
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Furthermore, critics have analysed the intersection of class and gender in the

novel. Marxist scholars have focused on the book’s industrial setting and the class

conflicts of its social-problem plot. Some Marxists, like John Lucas, have criticised the

novel for reducing class conflicts to personal relationships and not showing the

inevitability of class struggle (qtd. in Stoneman, “Elizabeth Gaskell” 78, 80-81). Julia

Swindells notes that Gaskell gave in to bourgeois critique of her earlier novels, which

featured working-class heroines, by placing capitalists at the moral centre of North and

South (111). Some class-conscious feminists, however, consider Margaret to be an

“active mediator of class conflict” (Brown 345), growing in political awareness thanks

to her exchanges with complex working-class characters (Hardy 25-28; Schor 179).

Stoneman has pointed out that Margaret and John’s relationship meshes with the

industrial plot to challenge the Victorian division of gender roles and to urge a

reconciliation of gendered perspectives on social relations (Introduction xvi).

       However, few feminist analyses deal in depth with the novel’s portrayal of

women as wives and mothers, even though, as Lambert claims, this is a growing field of

feminist research about Victorian novels. Victorian gender roles dictated that a woman’s

natural role was to be a wife and mother and her place was in the home (Dunst 52-53;

Schor 172). While single and widowed women were independent, married women in

Victorian England were legally disenfranchised, or “covered”, by their husbands’

control according to the “doctrine of coverture” (Lambert). Divorce did not become a

realistic option until the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857, and married women could not

keep their own property until the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870 (Schor 175).

       In this patriarchal context, “the angel in the house” ideal was a significant

Victorian gender role that much literature of the time explores. The term comes from

Coventry Patmore’s 1854 poem of the same name. It refers to the expectation that wives

and mothers, especially of the middle class, should be selfless, compassionate, and
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morally virtuous. They should be solely devoted to providing emotional support and

caring for their homes without complaint for the sake of their husbands and children

(Dunst 52-54; Langland 382; Moore 23-25). In the language of materialist feminism,

they were expected to provide reproductive and emotional labour unfailingly (Schroeder

463). Depicting wives and mothers as angels both revered them and justified their

limited reproductive role (Dunst 53). Some Victorian literary representations contrasted

this maternal ideal with other female stereotypes, such as the promiscuous “fallen

woman” (Moore 77-85). Gaskell herself challenged the latter stereotype in her portrayal

of the eponymous unwed mother in Ruth (Swindells 107). In short, realist novels were a

platform to explore the social, legal, and economic marginalisation of women in the

nineteenth century, not least in relation to marriage and motherhood (Stubbs xiii, 4-5).

       Within Gaskell scholarship, Maura Dunst, Elizabeth Langland, and Pearl L.

Brown are notable exceptions who do consider the marriage and motherhood angle of

North and South. Dunst compares “isolated (m)others” in four of Gaskell’s novels (see

more below) (52). Langland shows how Victorian female writers explored the

dichotomy between loyal daughters and marginalised mothers (383-384). Brown argues

that North and South depicts the isolation and powerlessness of women, including Mrs

Hale and Mrs Thornton, more than Gaskell’s earlier novel Mary Barton (353-354). Yet,

these articles tend to emphasise wives and mothers’ common oppression under

patriarchy to the detriment of considering how economic status or class also influence

their gendered experiences of otherhood. The following analysis aims to complement

the work of these scholars by adding the missing intersectional gender-class

perspective.

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4. Wives and Mothers as “the Other” in North and South

From a feminist perspective, North and South offers a compassionate portrayal of wives

and mothers, who are treated as marginalised “others” to both men and unmarried

women in patriarchal Victorian society. As Dunst argues, the novel paints a

predominantly bleak picture of these women, which gives the lie to the Victorian myth

of selfless and satisfied angels (52). Gaskell’s wives and mothers, Dunst argues, “have

in common suffering, silence, and lack of agency” (57). They are powerless, flawed and

suffering individuals, who are othered primarily through their isolation (52-53, 57). She

takes Mrs Thornton, Mrs Hale, and Mrs Boucher as examples, who are isolated in

several ways: physically isolated in the private sphere, emotionally isolated from

husbands and children, separated from loved ones by illness and death, and prevented

from exercising their intellectual abilities in the public sphere (52-69). Their isolation is

not solely due to their womanhood, since unmarried women like Margaret are less

isolated and have more agency (58). Brown agrees that the novel demonstrates and

criticises Victorian women’s limited choices, isolation, and passivity regardless of class

(351-353, 355).

       Dunst’s analysis is a useful starting point for understanding “covered” women’s

common experience of patriarchal otherhood in the novel, but it can be developed

further. Notably, wives and mothers are not only isolated from their families and from

the public sphere but also from each other. While men and single women in the novel

frequently meet across class boundaries (Gaskell 68, 142, 216, 268, 295, 399), wives

and mothers rarely meet each other. Except for Aunt Shaw and Edith, who cohabitate,

only three such meetings occur in the novel: two between Mrs Hale and Mrs Thornton

(91, 223-224), another between Mrs Thornton and Aunt Shaw (341-342). Each meeting

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is filled with misunderstandings and things left unsaid. For example, Aunt Shaw

misunderstands who Mrs Thornton is (341), and Mrs Thornton plays with words to

avoid promising the dying Mrs Hale’s to be kind to Margaret (223-224). By the end of

the novel, workers and employers come to realise the political importance of personal

contact across class boundaries (Stoneman, Introduction viii, xiii), but wives and

mothers are never granted this insight. Instead, they keep leading “parallel lives – very

close, but never touching” (Gaskell 388), illustrating de Beauvoir’s point about women

failing to unite in their otherhood across classes (28).

       Adding further to Dunst’s analysis, wives and mothers’ otherhood is

demonstrated by more than just isolation. While all are to some extent separated from

husbands and sons, they are also irrevocably tied to their male relatives and lack

independent social and economic identities. This illustrates de Beauvoir’s claim that

women as the other are defined with reference to men (25-26), even when isolated.

Notably, wives and mothers are consistently treated as appendages to and by their

husbands and sons. Even sympathetic male characters do not as a rule consult wives and

mothers about decisions that intimately concern them. Dunst reads this as a symptom of

covered women’s isolation (64, 67), but it is arguably more a sign of their status as

property, as per Guillaumin’s materialist feminist theory (73-74).

       For example, Mrs Hale is forced by her husband to move to Milton, a decision

Mr Hale makes without informing her (Gaskell 42, 352). Edith is expected to go to

Corfu for the sake of her husband’s military career, though she prefers London (7). In

addition, Edith’s “easy, kind and gentlemanly” (344) husband treats her as an ornament

whose appearance reflects him socially and therefore must “[make] a sufficient

impression upon the world” (345). This possessive attitude is condemned by the

narrative, since it angers the independent Margaret, who is the moral centre of the story

(345-346). Mrs Thornton is repeatedly compelled by her son to socialise with the wife
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and daughter of his friend Mr Hale, and thus act as a social extension of himself, though

she does not like them (88-90, 93, 134, 222). The widowed Mrs Boucher is not

consulted when a neighbour plans to move her and her children with him across the

country (313). The narrative is clearly critical of this objectification, since “‘internal

focalisation’” (Barry 233) is frequently used to show that none of the wives and mothers

are just appendages but separate individuals with opinions and feelings (Gaskell 13, 15,

193-194, 340-341).

        Wives and mothers’ status as property is also underlined by the absence of their

first names. Apart from Edith, who is introduced to the reader as an unmarried woman

(5), wives and mothers are almost exclusively called by their husband’s family name.

This clearly distinguishes them from the unmarried Margaret, who is generally called by

her first name. The few times covered women’s first names are used, it underlines their

marginalisation. Mrs Thornton’s first name is mentioned only once to mark her status as

economically dependent on her late husband and son: “There was some confusion about

what [linen] was hers, and consequently marked G. H. T. (for George and Hannah

Thornton), and what was her son’s – bought with his money, marked with his initials”

(194). “Aunt Shaw” or “Mrs Shaw” is only once called “Anna” when her sister

reminisces about their unmarried youth (188). Mrs Hale’s first name is mentioned more

frequently, but always by people speaking pityingly about, not to, her (14-15, 37, 46,

98, 104). Even her name, Maria, evokes her status as a suffering Madonna. When she

tries to reclaim her maiden name, which to her symbolises prosperity and happiness (71,

188), by suggesting that her son adopts it as a pseudonym, this is vetoed by her husband

(100). Minor characters like “the Vicar’s lady” Mrs Hepworth’s (362) and the deceased

Mrs Higgins’s first names are unknown (95), as is that of Mrs Boucher (274).

        In addition, wives and mothers are othered by their community because, in

materialist feminist terms, their reproductive work is considered lesser than male
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productive labour. The novel contains many scenes depicting the strenuous minutiae of

domestic life, from moving houses (49) to doing laundry (71) and mending linen (72).

Yet, this unpaid reproductive labour, carried out or supervised by wives and mothers, is

mostly patronised or ignored by men. For example, Edith’s brother-in-law says

mockingly about her wedding preparations: “Well, I suppose you are all in the depths of

business – ladies’ business, I mean. Very different to my business, which is the real true

law business. Playing with shawls is very different work to drawing up settlements”

(10). Similarly, Mr Hale repeatedly underestimates his wife’s work. He does not notice

that Mrs Hale has prepared dessert and instead invites their guest to eat pears in the

garden, a whim to which “she could only submit” (25). He is ignorant about the

difficulties of organising a house move in only two weeks (45) and entertains guests on

laundry day (70). Mr Thornton, normally respectful of his mother’s domestic

arrangements (133-134, 330), does not appreciate their complexity because he does not

understand how hard it would be for Mrs Thornton to train a new cook if the old one

were to resign (288). The idea that Mr Thornton himself would undertake something as

domestic as setting up a workers’ canteen is ridiculed by a male interlocutor: “Are you a

good judge of potatoes and onions? But I suppose Mrs Thornton assists you in your

marketing” (335).

       While wives and mothers’ work is trivialised, they are not themselves

considered intrinsically inferior in their role as mothers. On the contrary, motherhood is

exalted as essentially different from the male norm. Though this difference is

formulated positively, it nevertheless underlines their otherhood as reproductive

workers. It is assumed that mothers are uniquely and naturally caring, an idealist notion

that would be challenged by feminists like de Beauvoir, for whom biological maternity

does not equal socially constructed motherliness (Tyson 96-97). When Margaret is hurt

in a riot, Mr Thornton commits her to his mother, so that “she would have all womanly
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care, all gentle tendance” (Gaskell 169). Men repeatedly call on wives and mothers to

give womanly advice and comfort to unmarried women (134, 289-290, 328). Even the

strong-minded Margaret considers marriage and motherhood to be women’s default

state: “the hopes of womanhood have closed for me – for I shall never marry” (298) and

“I have neither husband nor child to make me natural duties …” (386).

        The rarefication of motherhood by the society of the novel is questioned by the

narrative’s complex portrayal of mothers as “flawed” humans (Dunst 52, 68), who are

capable of jealousy, selfishness, and neglect (Gaskell 194, 291, 375, 379). However, the

narrative does not fundamentally challenge the essentialising assumption that maternal

love is uniquely strong and natural. All the central wives and mothers in the novel have

been disillusioned with marital love: Mrs Thornton and Mrs Boucher were left destitute

after their husbands’ suicides (81-82, 272), Mrs Hale married for love but was

disappointed by her husband’s lack of ambition (14-19, 121), Aunt Shaw suffered a

loveless marriage to an older, wealthy man (6-7, 13-14), and Edith discovers that her

beloved Captain turns “stout and grumpy” after a few months of marriage (217). Yet,

while flawed, their love for their children is never truly called into question. The

mothers live vicariously through their children (6-7, 107, 137-138, 163, 194-197, 216-

217). They experience deep pain and pride in their disappointments and successes, best

exemplified by Mrs Hale’s rage when she reads that her son has been accused of

mutiny: “I tore [the letter] up to little bits – I tore it – oh! I believe, Margaret, I tore it

with my teeth” (102) and by Mrs Thornton’s hatred of Margaret for rejecting her son’s

proposal: “I am the mother that bore you, and your sorrow is my agony; and if you

don’t hate her, I do” (196).

        When fathers’ love is passionately expressed, it is not depicted as a natural male

state but an aberration (144, 203, 211, 214), caused by drunken grief (203), or by a

weak character who lets “passions get the better of reason” (126). That maternal love is
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seen as something other, even by the narrative itself, is also evidenced by the

omniscient narrator’s frequent use of similes to motherhood to signal when male

characters show unusually strong emotions. For example, when Mrs Hale dies, her

husband utters “a kind of soft inarticulate noise, like that of some kind of mother-animal

caressing her young” (232). John’s powerful love for Margaret makes the otherwise

controlled man feel “as the mother would have done” (311) and “much the same kind of

strange passionate pleasure which comes stinging through a mother’s heart” (249). As

Mrs Thornton puts it: “Mother’s love is given by God, John. It holds fast for ever and

ever. A girl’s love is like a puff of smoke, - it changes with every wind” (195). The

steadfast love Margaret develops for John challenges the second part of Mrs Thornton’s

statement (402-403), but the latter is clearly confirmed by the narrative’s portrayal of

maternal devotion.

       This section has argued, expanding on Dunst’s analysis by drawing on de

Beauvoir’s theory of otherhood and on materialist feminism, that a theme of North and

South is that wives and mothers are othered by Victorian patriarchal society. The

narrative criticises the negative aspects of this otherhood, while contradictorily

contributing to patriarchy’s essentialisation of maternal love. Yet, as the next section

will show, to claim that all wives and mothers in the novel are equally marginalised,

“devalued, disenfranchised, and distanced” (Dunst 68) would be to underestimate the

complexity of a narrative where class and money as well as gender influence the female

experience of marriage and motherhood.

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5. The Privilege of Money: Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw, and Edith

In North and South, money does not save wives and mothers from otherhood, but it

tempers their marginalisation. Privileged wives and mothers who belong to rich families

and high social classes are afforded more social inclusion and agency than their poor

sisters. Their spheres of action are wider, and they exercise power over the less

privileged. Yet, their privilege can be precarious, and the risk of losing it affects their

approach to marriage and/or motherhood.

       Mrs Thornton is a prime example of this. Dunst argues that Mrs Thornton’s

domestic isolation, “suffering, silence, and lack of agency” is “particularly severe”

given her strength and intellect (57). However, Mrs Thornton is arguably one of the

least isolated and most powerful women in the novel, thanks to her economic status and

high class. While she does not have the same autonomy and agency as a man of her

class, because she is dependent on her son for money (Gaskell 79-80), she is clearly not

isolated from the public sphere. Having helped her son rise from a draper’s assistant to a

millowner using her intelligence, thrift, and emotional labour (79, 81-82, 387, 392-393),

Mrs Thornton is duly included in John’s professional endeavours. He informs her and

values her input into his male sphere of industry (89, 135-136, 173-176, 196). She helps

John organise his strike-breakers (162), and she can gain entry to all major factories in

the city (92). Her involvement in the interests of her social class even leads her to

participate in the public sphere by walking unaccompanied through a workers’ riot to

warn a fellow manufacturer (109).

       Some of Mrs Thornton’s domestic seclusion is voluntary because she does not

like socialising or travelling (88, 90-91, 342). In fact, she has an extensive social circle

among the Milton manufacturing class because of her family’s economic standing (132,

138-139, 197). This allows her to throw business-related dinner parties (90, 132, 136,
                                                                                              16

149-151), and she can afford to keep a carriage to take her outside the home (88). Even

when she physically stays in the private sphere, as Dunst notes that she often does (59),

her house is situated opposite her son’s factory, so that she is deliberately close to the

bustle of public life (Gaskell 105, 150).

       Moreover, Mrs Thornton is not generally silent, especially when it concerns her

son’s interests. She frequently talks back to John about his work and love life (72-73,

88, 133-136, 173-174, 222, 288-290), even questioning his masculinity when he shows

weakness (173). When John faces bankruptcy, he discusses his financial situation with

his mother, who argues against his overly cautious approach to investment (391-392).

Mrs Thornton has strong political opinions about the millworkers’ strike and informs

others about how the negotiations between the trade union and employers are

progressing (108-109, 135, 150-151). She vociferously supports stereotypically

masculine, capitalist virtues like hard work and determination, while privately

condemning what she sees as feminine weakness (89-90, 92, 106-109, 331, 387).

       Mrs Thornton’s economic status also allows her to wield power over others,

albeit within a limited private sphere. “Her will was a household law” (74), and she

oversees a domestic staff which is comparable to a small enterprise. She has at least five

servants under her command, both women and men, who perform much of the

reproductive labour which otherwise would fall on her (163, 169-170, 174-175, 288).

She can even command them to take part in her religious worship (136). Her money and

social status make less prosperous wives and mothers dependent on her for help. For

example, Mrs Thornton donates a waterbed to ease Mrs Hale’s illness (159, 174),

provides her with a doctor (109, 143), and arranges for working-class Martha to help

Mrs Hale when the latter cannot find an affordable maid (291, 320). Mrs Thornton also

has the power to introduce Mr Hale to other manufacturers who may want to hire him as

a tutor (133, 154).
                                                                                             17

However, Mrs Thornton’s privilege is precarious because of her gendered

otherhood. Firstly, she is proud of her son’s success and displays the opulence of her

house and dress as an attestation of maternal pride (72, 74, 105-107, 149-150), but she

is frugal (88, 133-134, 372). She knows that money is easily lost in Milton industry; her

bridal linen and ancestral lace show that she grew up rich (91, 194), but her millowner

husband went bankrupt and committed suicide, leaving his family destitute (79, 81-82).

       Secondly, Mrs Thornton knows that even if her son remains rich, she will likely

lose her privilege anyway because of what Langland calls “patriarchy’s hierarchical

imperative” (386), whereby mothers are replaced by wives. In materialist feminist

terms, Mrs Thornton’s privileged position is dependent on John’s continued demand for

her emotional and reproductive labour. Mrs Thornton knows that she will “stand

second” (Gaskell 176) and face “dreary changes” (194) if her son marries, since her

labour supply will become surplus to demand when John’s wife takes over as his unpaid

business partner and confidant. As Hilary M. Schor points out, Margaret is attracted to

John partly because his economic position will allow her to “achieve access to a wider

world in which to act and learn” (180). Mrs Thornton already enjoys this access, and the

fear of losing it arguably explains her possessive attitude to motherhood. For example,

she tries to dissuade John from marrying even before that is his intention (Gaskell 72-

73). Throughout the narrative, she is jealous and full of “sore regret” (194) about John’s

love for Margaret because she knows that her future daughter-in-law will put her out of

a job (90, 134, 174-176, 193-194). The narrative suggests that her fear for her privilege

is justified; John will continue to “reward her former exertions” by providing for her

financially (80), but he thinks his mother should live a more passive life in accordance

with her gender role (79-81).

       In accordance with Russell Hochschild’s emotional labour theory (8), Mrs

Thornton reacts by “crushing down her own personal mortification” and does not fight
                                                                                   18

her fate (Gaskell 176). Like an angel in the house, she keeps silent about her feelings

when they do not benefit her son (176, 195). She even begins to erase herself

prematurely by symbolically unpicking her own initials from her bridal linen and

stitching on her daughter-in-law’s name before John has even proposed to Margaret

(194). Interestingly, Mrs Thornton is less despondent at the prospect of bankruptcy than

at the idea of her son remaining rich but displacing her by marriage (391-393). At least

bankruptcy will allow her to retain “her son, her pride, her property” (194), while he

works his way back up the capitalist ladder: “… you and I may be beggars together”

(392). In sum, unlike what Dunst argues (57-59), the greatest source of Mrs Thornton’s

suffering is not her powerlessness and isolation as a mother, but the fear of becoming

“devalued, disenfranchised and distanced” (68) by losing her relative privilege as a rich

man’s mother to another woman.

       Mrs Thornton’s precarious privilege both mirrors and diverges from that of the

other two wealthy wives and mothers of the novel, Aunt Shaw and Edith. While Mrs

Thornton represents the industrial, northern upper class, Aunt Shaw and Edith embody

the old-moneyed south of England. Aunt Shaw was born into the English gentry

(Gaskell 19), and both she and her daughter married into the professional classes. As

military wives, they remain connected with the aristocracy (Stoneman, Introduction xi).

       As with Mrs Thornton, the narrative does not depict Aunt Shaw and Edith as

especially suffering in their capacity as wives and mothers, which goes against Dunst’s

argument that the novel offers a uniformly grim portrayal of motherhood (52). They live

in “a luxurious house, where the bare knowledge of the existence of every trouble or

care seemed scarcely to have penetrated” (Gaskell 344). Like Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw

is a widow, but she has even more autonomy because her husband died wealthy, and she

has no son to assume patriarchal power over her (13). She therefore controls her own

money and is used to getting her own way (6-7, 13, 332). Both she and Edith can afford
                                                                                     19

servants and nannies to help with their reproductive work (66), and they can pay for

medical care (13). Edith’s independent status as an heiress gave her the agency to

decide herself whom to marry for love (6-7).

       Neither are Aunt Shaw and Edith especially isolated. Granted, as Brown notes,

despite their money Aunt Shaw and Edith are mostly confined to the private sphere

(353). For example, Edith is relegated to a life of parties, childcare, and music while her

husband is training with his regiment or socialising at his club (Gaskell 62-63, 345).

Yet, in comparison with the poor mothers who will be discussed in the next section,

Aunt Shaw and Edith are not lonely and have a lot of contact with the male public

sphere. They can afford to entertain an extensive social circle (6-7, 345-346, 377). Their

friends are shallow but witty professionals who bring insights about art and current

affairs (377). Aunt Shaw and Edith travel the continent on a regular basis, thus moving

beyond the private sphere (13, 47, 131). As Parkins notes, their consumption of

international merchandise signals their status as mobile women active in the process of

modernity (513).

       While depicted as kind and loving (Gaskell 216, 323, 338-339, 344, 381), Aunt

Shaw’s and Edith’s economic privilege make them insensitive to the plight of poor

female relatives (14, 323, 328, 331-332), and the surrounding society recognises their

relational economic power. For example, when Margaret moves in with Aunt Shaw and

Edith after her parents’ deaths, her godfather Mr Bell realises that the rich women will

control their poor relative, which is why he settles 250 pounds for Margaret’s yearly

upkeep (337). Yet, until Margaret comes into her full inheritance, Aunt Shaw and Edith

benevolently dictate her life, using her for free reproductive and emotional labour (332,

345-346, 375, 379, 385).

       However, as with Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw’s and Edith’s economic privilege

does not save them from patriarchal otherhood. On the contrary, as de Beauvoir argues
                                                                                    20

women sometimes do (30), Aunt Shaw and Edith have internalised the gender roles

which relegate them to monotonous, domestic lives (Gaskell 305, 344-345). For

example, despite having both means and opportunity, they show little interest in

enlarging their interests beyond feminine subjects like homemaking, fashion, and

matchmaking (7, 216-217, 329, 344-345, 379, 382-386, 396). Aunt Shaw restricts her

own autonomy by fancying herself ill, and neither she nor her daughter dares to leave

the house without servants (13, 66, 330, 339, 380, 395). Despite having the means not to

marry, Edith choses coverture and rejects what Margaret considers a plausible option:

politically active spinsterhood (6-7, 385, 395). Edith, like Mrs Thornton, feels the

precarity of her privilege: “I may say that without love – wifely duty – where was I?”

(217). She is consequently careful to retain her privilege by maintaining her beauty

(217, 345, 350) and eagerly performing emotional labour for her husband (9, 12-13).

       The portrayal of Mrs Thornton’s struggle to maintain her privilege is drawn in a

way that elicits sympathy from the reader. For example, having given her pained

blessing for John to propose to Margaret, “she went slowly and majestically out of the

room. But when she got into her own, she locked the door, and sat down to cry

unwonted tears” (176). Conversely, Aunt Shaw and Edith are judged by the omniscient

narrator for not making the most of their privilege. They are described as “spoiled”,

“careless and idle” (6), “inconsequent” (216), “childish” and “bewildered and

hysterical” (380). The maid Dixon summarises the narrator’s position: “When I hear

ladies talk such a deal about being ladies – and when they’re such fearful, delicate,

dainty ladies too – I say it’s no wonder to me that there are no longer any saints on

earth” (395).

        From the portrayal of Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw and Edith, a class-conscious,

feminist theme emerges; not even the most economically privileged wife and mother is

free from gendered otherhood and her privilege can be precarious when it depends on
                                                                                         21

men’s goodwill. Yet, wealth offers an opportunity for wives and mothers to be more

included in society and assume more agency. Reminiscent of de Beauvoir’s call on

women to take existential responsibility for their lives as subjects (30; Bergoffen and

Burke), the narrative suggests that they ought to make the most of their privilege by

engaging with the public sphere. This message is underlined by the contrasting portrayal

of poor wives and mothers, which will be explored in the next section.

6. Poverty and Protest: Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher

As Jessie Reeder notes, North and South is a novel of binaries (par. 1). Dualities abound

in the depiction of the pastoral south and the industrialised north, workers and

capitalists, and feminine and masculine perspectives on social relations (Moore 53;

Stoneman, Introduction v-vi). This essay adds another such binary: between

economically privileged and disadvantaged wives and mothers. The relative privilege of

Mrs Thornton, Aunt Shaw, and Edith is thrown into relief by the contrasting portrayal

of Mrs Hale’s and Mrs Boucher’s poverty. From an intersectional feminist perspective,

Mrs Hale’s and Mrs Boucher’s experiences demonstrate how types of inequality overlap

and intensify each other. Their lack of wealth interacts with their gendered otherhood to

increase their suffering and marginalisation.

        Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher have lost what Lambert calls the “lottery of

marriage”. Under the pressures of capitalism, their husbands are unable to uphold their

side of what Delphy calls the “labour contract” of marriage (99), which is the direct

cause of most of their suffering and affects their attitude to their gender role. Firstly,

much of Mrs Hale’s marginalisation is not incidental to her economic circumstances, as

Dunst implies (62-65), but is caused by her husband’s failure to see the economic

consequences of his actions. From when she is first married, the noble-born Mrs Hale is
                                                                                     22

alienated from her vicar husband’s professional class and disappointed by his lack of

ambition (Gaskell 16-17, 48, 51), which he finds rewarding but forces her to live in

“makeshift poverty” (121). Her poverty separates her emotionally, physically, and

socially from her rich sister and keeps her from performing her maternal gender role,

since she cannot afford to raise her own daughter (14-15, 19, 121).

       Mr Hale sees his wife’s suffering and how he has broken his contract with her:

“I know so well your mother’s married life has not been all that she hoped – all she had

a right to expect” (34; emphasis added). Nevertheless, he repeatedly acts impractically,

as if he had no financial dependents. Giving up the priesthood due to a theological

disagreement cripples his finances (31-33, 47, 123). Yet, instead of settling in another

affordable village, Mr Hale moves his wife and daughter to Milton at too great an

expense because he thinks he can live a more active life there, earning money by

teaching (34-36, 47, 62). Alas, Mr Hale is “too simple for trade” (133) and does not

understand the market forces at play in a capitalist society like Milton, where there is

little demand for the academic knowledge he supplies (64). To both manufacturers and

workers, Mr Hale is economically useless (132-133, 138-139), “no longer looked upon

as the Vicar of Helstone, but as a man who only spent at a certain rate” (65).

       As Brown notes, Mrs Hale is more marginalised by her husband’s behaviour

than he is himself (347, 354), and this is arguably due to how her gendered otherhood

intersects with capitalism. In Milton, Mr Hale moves freely in the public sphere, makes

new acquaintances from all classes through his job, and lives an intellectually fulfilling

life despite his poverty (Gaskell 64-65, 132, 142, 255). Mrs Hale is denied this inclusion

and agency. As a vicar’s wife in the semi-feudal south, she was not rich but had some

authority over her husband’s congregation, a social circle, charity work, and a teaching

position at the parish school, which brought her out of the private sphere (18, 30, 38,

42-43, 362). However, in capitalist Milton, she feels “desolate” (61). She is stuck in a
                                                                                           23

socio-economic limbo, where she is too poor and socially disgraced by her husband’s

religious defection to be the equal of manufacturers’ wives, yet too genteel to be one of

the working-class women (42, 72-73, 88, 133, 138-139). Accustomed to run a

household with at least three staff, she can only afford to employ a housemaid thanks to

the help of Mrs Thornton (20, 65-65, 83, 86-87). She is thus deprived of even that

limited domestic agency granted to rich wives. Mr Hale even wants to dismiss her

confidant, her lady’s maid Dixon, which would have isolated Mrs Hale further (47). Her

poverty makes her feel inadequate as a mother, since she cannot afford new clothes for

her daughter or protect her from heavy housework (71, 138, 149).

       The narrative does not paint Mrs Hale as wholly sympathetic, despite her

intersectional suffering. In some ways, like her sister and niece, she is complicit in her

own marginalisation; she is childish (53, 137) snobbish (43, 61, 71, 137), and does not

take an interest in Milton industry beyond how factory smoke soils her textiles (77, 92).

She is generally depicted as “silly and shallow” (Dunst 63). Yet, by emphasising her

insufficient economic means, the narrative gives Mrs Hale a valid excuse for failing to

enlarge her sphere, unlike Aunt Shaw and Edith. In the individualistic Milton, there is

little call for her charity work to allow her to meet new people (Gaskell 69, 147-148),

and she is consigned to a small house on the outskirts of a large, impersonal city with no

carriage to take her out of the house and no money to travel abroad (56, 61). Moreover,

the narrative implies that the anxiety of poverty and being forced to live in a smoky

industrial city cause Mrs Hale’s mysterious illness (62, 83, 98, 104). Her illness makes

her unable to leave the house or socialise and eventually kills her, which is another key

sign of her isolation (Dunst 62, 64-65).

       Mrs Hale is poor but with more than 100 pounds a year, she is not destitute

(Gaskell 35, 129), unlike the working-class Mrs Boucher. Like Mrs Hale, Mrs

Boucher’s marginalisation is caused by her husband’s failure to provide as a productive
                                                                                      24

worker under capitalist pressures. Mr Boucher is “a weak kind o’chap” (145), a

millworker who betrays the trade unionists’ cause by starting a riot which breaks the

strike (164-165, 271), abandons his family (205), and commits suicide when he cannot

find work (272). The narrative invites a comparison between Mrs Boucher and Mrs

Thornton, whose husband also committed suicide following capitalist failure. The two

women are also united by their love for their sons, who even share the same name: John

Thornton and “Jack” or “Johnnie” Boucher (126, 144, 195, 276). However, the

women’s experiences differ because of their class belonging. Unlike Mrs Thornton, Mrs

Boucher has had no middle-class education to teach her to handle money prudently

(145-146), neither is her son old or well-educated enough to go into trade (79, 81-82,

126). The Thorntons at their poorest lived on 15 shillings a week for three people and

Mrs Thornton had a “fragment of property secured to [her]” from before her marriage

(81-82), whereas Boucher only earns five shillings to feed ten people (144, 126). Mrs

Boucher is too ill from starvation to work herself and cannot afford healthcare (126,

144, 148). Whether due to her illness or her husband’s ostracism as a class traitor, she is

completely isolated. She has little contact with her neighbours before his death and is

never seen outside the home (273). In sum, the mirror images of Mrs Thornton and Mrs

Boucher clearly show the additional marginalisation caused by poverty and class

inequality under capitalism when they intersect with the gendered otherhood of wives

and mothers.

       Since most women were legally and socially prevented from either divorce or

independent earning in the 1850s (Schor 175-176), Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher lack the

agency to escape their combined patriarchal and economic marginalisation.

Nevertheless, they are not merely silent victims, as erroneously claimed by Dunst (57).

Brown also mistakenly characterises Mrs Hale as “weak [and] ineffective” (347).

                                                                                          25

Reeder argues that Mrs Hale has “political efficacy” because her illness demonstrates

the dangers of industrial pollution, but that she and Mrs Boucher do not have agency

themselves (pars. 7, 9-11). Such interpretations underestimate Mrs Hale’s and Mrs

Boucher’s rebelliousness, which can be likened to that of the novel’s striking

millworkers (Gaskell 164).

       Because the novel’s poor wives and mothers have little to lose from reneging on

reproductive labour contracts already broken by their husbands, they show a greater

propensity than their privileged sisters to protest the Victorian patriarchal role of the

angel in the house. They do this by refusing reproductive and emotional labour. Firstly,

Mrs Hale uses silence to regain agency over her life by keeping her illness a secret from

her husband and daughter (83, 118, 120). Some of Mrs Hale’s isolation is thus a

voluntary attempt to control how much of herself she gives to others, not, as Dunst

argues (64), a sign of her otherhood. Secondly, in response to their husbands’ financial

failure, both Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher try to reclaim their agency by striking, i.e.,

refusing to carry out the reproductive and emotional labour expected of them as wives

and mothers. Notably, when told of her husband’s decision to move to Milton, Mrs Hale

“takes to her bed” (Gaskell 45) and abdicates all domestic responsibility to Margaret,

who, as Schroeder argues, becomes her parents’ emotional carer (466). Similarly, Mrs

Boucher neglects her children and home in despair at being abandoned by her husband

(Gaskell 144, 148, 274-276).

       Both women use their voices to blame their husbands for their suffering, neither

attempting to show compassion or honour the self-effacing ideal of the angel in the

house (16-17, 41-43, 70-71, 205, 276-279). Both Mrs Hale and Mrs Boucher are

repeatedly described by the narrator as “querulous” (97, 274, 278). That choice of

diction casts them as difficult women compared to the stoical Mrs Thornton, who “is not

given to complaints” (89) and never refuses her son emotional labour in return for her
                                                                                            26