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Friday, September 25, 2020 - 21:00

I can't help but think that the story of Baddeley & Steele is more fascinating than the rather sordid, mercenary mess that Rizzo presents it as. If I were still doing the more detailed notetaking that I'm trying to step back from, I'm not sure how I would have stopped on this one. It would make a fascinating movie, full of intrigue, drama, and larger than life characters. (Almost none of which is apparent in her rather thin Wikipedia entry. Though it does have a link to Steele's biography of her.)

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 9 - Business Partners: Baddeley and Steele

This chapter looks at a fairly complicated relationship between two women, one a courtesan, and one fulfilling the role of companion, along with also being her manager, her pimp, and her lover.

Sophia Baddeley was a sometime actress and performer who found her talents more acceptably turned to the business of entertaining rich and handsome men. She would have done better in that profession if she had focus more on the rich ones than the handsome ones, but she did spend a significant period being maintained by one of the richest men in England. Unfortunately, she had a habit of spending far more than any reasonable man was willing to consider her worth. That, along with a free-spending lifestyle, an addiction to laudanum, and a series of bad choices in male companionship eventually led to her decline through the ranks of society until she was making a living once more on the stage at the end of her life.

Elizabeth Steele was Baddeley’s companion from the very beginning of her career. Sorting out the relationship between the two women is not easy. Rizzo doesn’t make it any easier by having some very fixed ideas about the nature of the relationship that aren’t always supported by the evidence she presents. Suffice it to say that Steele was the businesswoman. She was the one who made arrangements for living places. She was the one who discussed finances with Baddeley’s lovers. And she was the one who scraped together the money to pay off debts when the men didn’t come through.

Rizzo asserts that the two women were lovers and though the specific evidence for that isn’t presented, it fits with some of the patterns of behavior. Certainly there was a codependent relationship between them and Steele (in the posthumous biography she wrote of Baddeley, which was in part a context for extortion) depicts them as having a close and intimate relationship. They usually lived together (and shared a bed when Baddeley didn’t have a lover around), had explosive separations in the context of Baddeley’s aforementioned “bad choices”, and had tender and forgiving reunions (usually when Baddeley needed to get her finances back in order after a lover had cleaned her out).

Baddeley was clearly emotionally dependent on Steele, as well as relying on her for business sense. But I’m not sure I entirely buy Rizzo’s depiction of Steele as being focused primarily on using Baddeley as a source of income. Time and again, Steele retrieves Baddeley from unfortunate situations, puts her on her feet again, and sees her back into some semblance of functionality. There are situations presented where Steele’s actions make no sense unless she had a genuine attachment to her.

Rizzo also asserts that the women’s story is an example of a principle that she has identified that when women’s alliances are used in support of patriarchal structures, they are successful, but when they ally to oppose patriarchal structures, they’re doomed. Baddeley and Steele regularly scorned the men whose desires supported them, mocking many of Baddeley’s suitors and playing cruel tricks on others. But I don’t see that Baddeley’s eventual fall from fashion can be pinned on that attitude, except by treating it as some abstract moral accounting. Based on the evidence presented, it strikes me that Baddeley‘s fall was caused by her extravagant personality, her lack of common sense when it came to business, and her addictions.

In fact the more I read through this book the more it feels like there’s an underlying streak of misogyny in how Rizzo interprets many of the biographies. Women’s motivations and actions are interpreted negatively whenever possible. Not that the men’s actions are depicted any more positively, so perhaps we might say an underlying misanthropic streak. This may be turned around in the next few chapters, where the topic turns to biographies of women considered to be altruistic.

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Wednesday, September 23, 2020 - 17:00

I could have sworn I posted this yesterday, but I'm so busy getting the legacy podcast episodes up it's not surprising a lose track of all the rotating tasks. I needed to take a day off anyway, it's just a matter of which one. Again, not much commentery on this one other than to recommend watching The Duchess, and not just because I'm a Keira Knightly fan-girl.

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 8 – Agents, Rivals, and Spies: Empowering Strategies II

While the previous chapter looked at examples of women conspiring together against the man in the household, this chapter looks at cases where a female companion enters the household to conspire with the husband against her mistress. Three of the examples are biographical and one fictional.

The first case is Mary Delaney, whom we met in a previous chapter. Mary was married at age 18 to a much older man--a close ally of her uncle--and made the strategic mistake of letting her husband know that she felt no attraction to him and considered his person to be somewhat disgusting. As one might imagine this did not endear her to him, though she was a willing participant in the marriage.

The problem was her husband’s sister Jane. Jane was decidedly ill-tempered and had been left in the lurch in her own marriage. Mary had asked her husband to promise never to have Jane live with them, but when the couple moved to London, she found Jane ensconced in their house as housekeeper, companion, and spy.

Mary suffered it, having nothing to hide, but the constant tension between the women meant that the marriage never improved.

 Mary outlasted the situation by silent obedience. In the end she did convince her husband to send his sister packing and it looked like their relationship might turn around, but he died shortly after, having left no inheritance to Mary except the portion she brought into the marriage.

Mary Delaney then spent most of the rest of her life being not quite an official companion but certainly a long-term guest in the house of various friends, including the Duchess of Portland who shows up as a hostess in the lives of a number of women’s biographies in these pages. At one point, Mary Delaney did find a happy marriage, but to an impoverished man who did not improve her situation. After his death she lived only by means of a pension granted to her by the king and queen--the situation she was in when she met Frances Burney as previously mentioned.

The second example is much darker. Elizabeth Cathcart (we’ll refer to her by the highest title she achieved) managed an incredible climb in society and wealth through a series of strategic marriages and conveniently early deaths of the men she married. she began by marrying a wealthy man to please her parents and inherited a considerable estate from him on his death. Whereupon she married another wealthy man who died a scant six years later leaving her a fabulous amount of money and properties and the ability to make whatever choices in life took her fancy.

Her fancy was to marry a significantly younger Irishman who had risen in the Royal service, who it turned out was after her only for her money. He was able to secure it but means of an alliance with a young protégé of Elizabeth Cathcart who conspired against her mistress and then even impersonated her to pull the job off. Maguire essentially kidnapped his wife, took her off to Ireland where legal action couldn’t touch him, forced her to sign over various incomes to him, and then imprisoned her for 20 years in a castle belonging to one of his brothers.

The peculiar thing about this situation is that lady Cathcart’s relatives and friends back in London were well aware of the situation--of the fact that she had been kidnapped and that she was being held against her will--but did nothing except mention it in letters to each other. There is a sense that they felt she was getting her just desserts, having risen higher than she had a right to and then making a foolish marriage--possibly with the added crime of marrying a foreigner. She survived her husband and was freed and regained some part of her property, surviving to the age of 98.

The third example of a spy within the walls is much more ambiguous. When Georgiana Spencer was married at age 16 to the Duke of Devonshire there was no reason why the marriage shouldn’t have been happy…except that the Duke was a notorious cold fish and ill suited to compatibility with a very young, innocent wife. Their marriage was decidedly unhappy, which Georgiana took out in enormous gambling debts and the duke managed with reference to other women.

At some point, Lady Elizabeth Foster came into their lives. She was separated from her husband in an unhappy marriage, and from her two sons, with no income allowed to her. She moved in with the Devonshires under the story that she was a companion to Georgiana, but it soon became evident that she was a much more intimate companion to the Duke.

Without going into many of the long details, they formed an interesting triangle with both Georgiana and the Duke being devotedly in love with Foster and her playing the role of go-between for them. Lady Foster had several children attributed to the Duke and Rizzo suggests that she may have been a sexual facilitator to enable Georgiana to get pregnant eventually as well. There is also some evidence that the Duke was not the only Devonshire that Lady Foster was mistress to. There is some decidedly romantic poetry surviving that Georgiana wrote to Lady Foster and even given the power dynamics of the marriage it’s hard to imagine such not merely cordial, but loving, sentiments that Georgiana expressed to Lady Foster without there having been some genuine love underlying it.

(Since I’m periodically mentioning cinematic portrayals of the people mentioned here, I’ll note that The Duchess is the story of Georgiana’s life and includes the subplot about her having a sexual relationship with Lady Foster. IMDB link)

The fictional example used to top this off is Frances Burney’s novel Cecelia, discussed in an earlier chapter. Here again is a case where the companion figure in a household makes common cause with a male authority figure to undermine and betray her mistress.

The four examples in this chapter had varying relations with both the man they were allies to and the woman they were some type of companion to. The mistresses may in some cases have been oblivious although in Georgiana’s case she may have--to some degree--been a willing participant in the three cornered marriage.

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Tuesday, September 22, 2020 - 17:00

I think the "read through then dictate" process is working as intended. No really comments on this one. Written in haste...

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 7 - Deputy Labor: Empowering Strategies

This chapter looks at the lives of women who, in their function as companions, provided significant economic and managerial benefit to the households they were attached to. In some cases, I feel that the category “companion” is being stretched a little, but I’ll go with Rizzo’s classification. The examples include using those talents for both good and ill (or perhaps, for the benefit of the household as a whole versus for personal enrichment) and include both biographical and fictional examples.

The first example is that of Anne Fannen, who began in a fairly low position in the household service of the Duke of Richmond and, by working her way up the servants hierarchy, became lady’s maid to the oldest daughter, Caroline. By assisting Caroline in her elopement with Henry Fox, Fannen established both her loyalty and resourcefulness and secured her future, though at some initial risk.

As a side note: Caroline’s story is central to the miniseries Aristocrats (IMDB link) although Fannen’s part is not featured.

Having thrown her lot in with the eloping couple, Fannen was rewarded with a secure position in their household and rose to become housekeeper—a significant function for the household of a rising politician—and supervisor of their two children. Her success relied on the fact that Henry Fox was reliably rewarded those who had helped him, and showed loyalty to those who were loyal to him.

Given this, when Fannen engaged in her own secret marriage with Fox’s new steward, it was a reasonable gamble that not only would he see the fair play in forgiving the subterfuge, but would value both their talents enough to give them increasingly significant responsibilities. The couple became mainstays of the Fox establishment and each served not only as valued servant but as companion and confidant.

Carolyn Fox had a interestingly symbiotic relationship with Fannen. The break with her family due to her elopement had hit her hard and contemporaries often described her as somewhat child-like in personality. Fannen stepped in and stepped up to the responsibilities of managing the household and serving as Carolyn’s surrogate in all manner of social tasks.

It might have been easy for a woman such as Caroline to resent or tyrannize over someone who was, after all, a servant, and yet had become such an essential part of the functioning of the family. But they were on good social terms until the end of Caroline’s life. After Fannen retired due to health and moved into a separate house with her husband, Caroline and her sons often visited them socially.

It must be emphasized that this was not a companionship of social equals. It was a case of a very able servant being given the opportunity and the permission to become an essential foundation of the household structure, but also treated as a friend and confidant. Because her skills were recognized, valued, and rewarded, the relationship among all parties was beneficial to them all.

A rather different dynamic is illustrated by the second family in this chapter, illustrating that even the ablest woman was not able to engage in managerial contributions to the household unless the man in charge allowed it. Jane Parr was intelligent and highly accomplished but made the mistake of marrying a misogynist who had no respect for women’s abilities. The frustration she felt in this arrangement came out in spiteful sarcasm on both sides, as duly witnessed by various members of their social circle. They had two daughters, the elder of whom took after her mother in being intelligent, personable, and very able. But as her mother’s confidant and companion she was persuaded to take an entirely different approach to marriage, than she had.

 Rather than marrying a poor but brilliant scholar as her mother had, she was advised to marry a wealthy fool whom she expected to manage and dominate.

Unfortunately, marrying a stupid man, even one significantly her junior, did not achieve the independence in her personal life that she desired. She ended up with a husband just as misogynistic as her father, furthermore he was abusive to her. In the end, in a complex catastrophe of circumstances, the fallout from the daughter’s marriage resulted in the illness and rapid death of both women.

It’s not entirely clear how this example fits into the discussion of companions but Rizzo treats it as an example of women colluding together socially to achieve their end--unsuccessfully in this case.

The topic of economic motivations in family dynamics is last illustrated by two fictional examples. Samuel Johnson’s novel Rambler involves a courtship and marriage in which all parties are focusing solely on the expectation of economic gain, with love playing no part. By the time the wedding is celebrated, all parties feel cheated. The young bride brings with her into the marriage an older companion who, in theory, is to teach her domestic management, but in reality is her partner in plans to recover her expectations from the marriage financially.

Given that her husband married her for her money it’s hard to fault her for taking an equally mercenary view of the match. But the moral of the story as presented is that a man should marry a virtuous woman rather than marrying for money and should keep power over his estates in his own hands rather than allowing women to take it over. The conspiring women are punished in the end for their efforts.

The last example of the manipulation of economic power by a companion is Charlotte Smith’s novel The Old Manor House involving a housekeeper-companion to a tyrannical woman, who is happy to place the management of her affairs in the hands of someone whose feelings she considers of no value. The housekeeper companion is an able manager, but her morals have been destroyed by the need to toady to a woman less able than herself. Gradually she ousts anyone not loyal to her from the household and takes control of ever more of her mistress’s affairs.

But having taken her mistress as a model of behavior, the housekeeper eventually over steps and is betrayed by others in turn. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but the moral of the story is that a woman who abuses power for her own ends will meet a deserved come-upance, as well as the continuing theme that being companion to a tyrannical mistress will inevitably corrupt all but the most virtuous companion.

In this case the housekeeper-companion had the opportunity to turn her business and management skills to the advantage of the entire household, but not only was this end blocked by her mistress’s ill-will but by the companions moral flaws as well.

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Monday, September 21, 2020 - 19:00

For today’s entry, I experimented with reading through the chapter, then dictating the summary directly. It probably shows a little in the flow of the blog, even with some editorial clean-up. But it means I’m better able to condense the notes down to the highlights rather than going off into the weeds of details as I’m reading. We’ll see how it continues.

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 6 - Parent and Child: Montagu and Gregory

This chapter looks at the relationship between noted bluestocking Elizabeth Montagu [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Montagu] and her protégé Dorothea Gregory, who was taken on functionally as an adopted daughter and raised to continue Montagu’s career and projects.

Montagu had married a man somewhat beneath her own social status, but with extensive business interests and who was willing to indulge her social projects, in particular a circle of intellectuals who regularly met at their London house and came to be known as the Bluestocking Society.

Montagu was not simply a good wife but, in effect, a business partner although she represented herself as having no will or desires of her own, but simply implementing her husband’s policies and wishes. She gradually took over the management of his affairs, especially as he became ill towards the end of his life. For the most part she did genuinely play the role of obedient righthand man, though there is clear evidence that she was able to divert him to her own positions when she felt strongly about an issue. Once her husband died, leaving her as sole heir to his wealth and business interests, it was clear that Elizabeth had always had her own ideas but was content to be patient to implement them.

The Montagus only child died young and Elizabeth Montagu took on the daughter of an impoverished relative as a substitute daughter. Her intent, as well as gaining companionship, was to train her up to provide the sort of assistance and support that she had given her husband. After the death of Mr. Montagu, Dorothea Gregory did serve this function for an extended period. She repeated Elizabeth’s path in appearing to have no will or desires of her own but ably serving as Elizabeth’s surrogate in business affairs and social arrangements.

The sticking point in this companionate relationship came from the question of inheritance and legacy. If Dorothea had genuinely been intended as a daughter, Elizabeth could have adopted her, named her as heir, and ensured her permanent financial security. But for reasons that can only be teased out with effort and guesswork, this didn’t happen. It’s likely that Elizabeth’s need to always be the controlling figure and the center of flattery and attention was a major factor. (These features were commented on within the context of her salon, including by her sister Sarah Scott, the author of Millenium Hall.)

Instead of establishing Gregory clearly as her heir, Montagu named her much younger nephew. It’s unclear at what point Montagu hit on the plan of retaining Gregory’s services as companion, assistant, and surrogate without needing to provide her with independence, but at some point when the nephew was still in his teens (and a decade younger than Gregory), it was proposed that the two of them should make a match. Gregory responded with a soft refusal, while still giving the impression of compliant obedience. (And, to be fair, it does seem that Gregory was devoted to Montagu and would have liked to make her happy. She just had this idea about preferring to be in love before marrying.)

With the nephew plan delayed but still on the table, Gregory—while on an extended visit with family in Scotland—fell in love with an poor but aspiring clergyman and eventually broached the subject to Montagu about receiving her blessing to marry him.

This was not forthcoming, but at this point Gregory found that “will of her own” that she had previously professed not to have. Montagu was pressured into agreeing that she would agree to the marriage once Gregory’s suitor gained a position with a living sufficient to support a family. And then she appears to have gone to some lengths to sabotage his prospects.

The conflict lasted over an extended period of nearly 2 years with negotiation, conflict, emotional confrontations, and finally an outright break. A family friend of Gregory who had been trying to help make arrangements before being undermined by Montagu helped the couple cobble together sufficient income to bridge the gap until a living was forthcoming. Throughout this time, Gregory showed the ability and resources that not only had attracted Montagu’s attention and approval at the beginning, but that Montagu’s mentorship had helped to develop and solidify in her.

While the Montagu-Gregory relationship had benefitted both of them significantly, it broke at last due to Montagu’s vanity and pride. She had established a name for herself with the Bluestocking circle, but her goal was aggrandizement of her own reputation and the attraction of people who would flatter her personally.

What could have become a social and economic dynasty with Montagu succeeded by a woman who was just as able and talented as she has been, instead resulted in the two women breaking off any connection for the rest of their lives. Given Montagu’s personality, the break was inevitable, given that Gregory was as strong, confident, and determined as she was herself—and just as able to conceal her own goals and ends as Montagu had been, during the course of her marriage.

The form that different companionship relations take: whether that of friend, or spouse-substitute, or child stands independent of the dynamics of the relationship that determine its success or failure. In the past few chapters we’ve seen several specific examples of different relationships that failed due to the controlling nature of the woman in power, but this was not always the case. A companion had the ability to reshape the nature of the relationship with sufficient skills and the context in which those skills were both recognized and valued. As we will see in the next chapters.

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Sunday, September 20, 2020 - 09:00

It’s always tricky to figure out what level of summary to create for a publication. Some works are so dense I throw up my hands and give only a cursory outline. Some are so scanty I can summarize the whole. In the middle, I find the structure of a book influences my approach—if only because I have an idea of a maximum blog length that people are likely to read. (Not sure what it is exactly, but I have a vague idea.)

Rizzo’s book, with its multiplicity of single-focus chapters, is tricking me into being more wordy than the material really calls for. And yet it’s hard to see the more condensed version until after I’ve read and annotated the chapter. At that point, I already have the words, so I might as well post them. For future chapters, I think I’ll put in the time to read the whole thing first and then go through and do my summary. So expect something a bit more condensed (I hope). But it would be useful to know which version my readers would prefer. Do you like more detail that gives you a sense of the book as a whole? Or just enough to know whether a publication is something you'd like to track down for yourself?

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 5 Frances Bernie and the Anatomy of Companionship

It’s interesting to read about Hester Thrale from a more personal angle. My previous encounters with her in this blog have been less sympathetic. The quoted correspondence from Thrale talking about Frances Burney is full of expressions of love and devotion. The sort that scholars quote when discussing the fuzzy line between conventional social expressions of friendship and ones that hint of erotic attraction.

But I can’t help remembering the other side of Thrale’s writing: her gossipy accusations of close female friends being “a little too devoted to their own sex” and the striking passage in which Thrale referred to the Ladies of Llangollen as “damned Sapphists.“ Though people of the time didn’t necessary see an equivalence between male and female same-sex relations, Thrale was even more vicious in her private writing about men she suspected of homosexuality.

 So is Thrale an example of how romantic language doesn’t always indicate erotic same-sex love? Or is there a suggestion that Thrale was conflicted on the topic due to her own disappointment in not achieving the companionship she wanted? Or is this simply a lesson in how affection, romance, eros, and other varieties of love come in different combinations and people draw their lines of acceptable and unacceptable in individual places?

My vote is on the last. One of the reasons that romantic friendship created a space in which homoerotic relationships could exist is that there was always ambiguity. Or rather, the types of emotional relationships that were real for 18th century people included intensely romantic feelings that did not incorporate eros, as well as those that did. And there will always be people like Thrale who embrace one combination of emotions as the only acceptable combination, while disparaging others.

At the same time, it’s clear that Thrale was not always introspective about her feelings. At the same time, she wanted Frances Burney to be present and available to her at all times as a supportive friend and confidant, who would value that friendship not only for Thrale’s presence but for her presents, and Thrale despised companions who were subservient, dependent, and toad-eaters. The latter allowed her to forgive Burney for refusing the former. But that lack of insight into her own conflicts may have contributed to a failure to see common ground with women who enjoyed “companionship with benefits” and concluding that those women were Doing It Wrong.

Novelist Frances Burney [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Burney] has the appearance of the idealized 18th century Englishwoman: altruistic, complacent, self-sacrificing. But beneath it she has a sense of self, of the firmness of purpose to make her own choices and set her own path. She was a dutiful daughter, but refused to marry a man she didn’t care for only to please her father. She chose a life of service, but not to the point of sacrificing her own happiness. And when she found him, she refused to give up the man she loved who wanted to marry her.

She made one unwise decision that placed her in the queen’s household under the thumb of a two-faced tyrant who toadied to the queen but terrorized those under her. But Burney escaped with an annuity, her dignity, and the ability to choose her own companionship.

Frances Burney came from a typical background for companions: genteel, but with no resources other than the father’s income. Both sons and daughters had their futures arranged for by other means. They might have individual talents that gave them an entrance into society, as with Frances’s writing or her father’s music teaching, but marriage was a different matter. And sometimes the talent that bought entrance only moved one further away from good marriages, as with the fuzzy line between being an accomplished musician and being a professional performer.

The Burney family boasted two talented daughters: Frances, the novelist and Esther, a musical prodigy; but suffered under a stepmother who had been accustomed to taking center stage and now found herself sidelined. The family fortunes, such as they were, had been built by the institution of companionship. Mr. Burney had turned musical talent into a household position with Fulke Grevile, who treated him as an equal and educated him in social graces.

Frances saw some of the less appealing sides of companionship in her father’s relations to his patron, but she was unable to escape being assigned as companion to her stepmother, who worked out her social frustrations in physical ailments and emotional demands, as well as a constant stream of sarcasm directed at Frances and her siblings when they failed to treat her with the respect she felt due. Among them all, there was a conspiracy to avoid bothering Mr. Burney with the dysfunctional family dynamics, though it was in general supportive of Frances’s aspirations.

The success of Frances’s first novel gave her some means of escape--socializing with Hester Thrale’s intellectual circle, or retreating to the home of her mentor Samuel Crisp to write--but only if she was able to offer a sacrificial sister in her place. Frances found it impossible to write in her father’s house, yet writing was her hope of escape.

Although a husband might have been less onerous than tending to her stepmother, she declined an offer from a man who wanted her for her “affability, sweetness, and sensibility” but had no use for her talents, intellect, and wit. Frances was staking her future on being able to support herself by writing--a risky plan as it was considered indecorous for a woman.

The characters portrayed in Frances’s novel Evelina reveal the strength of character Frances had herself. It was Evelina that brought her to the attention of Hester Thrale, famed for hosting an intellectual circle at her home. Thrale in turn got a talented woman to adorn that circle. Thrale had social connections but was hungry for female companionship. The extended visits Frances enjoyed with her benefited them both, but Frances also recognized the hazards in Thrale’s patronage. Thrale despised toad-eating even as she expected Frances’s attendance and compliance, so Frances must not be too accommodating or lose her respect. At the same time, Thrale wanted a full-time companion who would travel with her, not just enjoy long visits.

Frances used her family responsibilities as a tool to maintain control over the scheduling of her visits to Thrale, resulting in a constant and sometimes tense negotiation. Thrale thought the most valuable things she could offer were entrance to society circles and access to a good marriage, but Frances had already bartered away respectability for the independence of a writing career and didn’t plan to throw that away.

Frances greatly enjoyed the intellectual stimulation of Thrale’s circle, even though keeping up with the social requirements on a writer’s income which meant serving as her own dressmaker and maid. This problem would continue later when she was at court.

At Thrale’s she resisted accepting presents of clothing because they would cement her status as a companion, not as a friend. The status of friend was what made freedom of movement possible, and freedom of movement--especially to visit Crisp--was what made writing possible. And writing was what had made entrance to Thrale’s circle possible. It was all braided together.

Correspondence shows a degree of emotional attachment and need on Thrale’s part that Frances found stifling, despite returning her devotion. Not until the publication of Frances’s second novel did Thrale accept that Frances would never settle for the role of full-time companion.

Once Thrale stopped pushing, Frances stopped resisting quite as much and she was more amenable to being present for Thrale’s needs, as when her husband died after a long illness. But Frances still resisted the role of companion and reacted badly to a newspaper announcement of their new domesticity, comparing them to other notable companionship arrangements of the day, for all the world like a marriage announcement.

Thrale was less insightful about the hazards of companionship then Frances, but their relationship was soon resolved in a different direction when Thrale transferred her demanding attentions to a new target: Gabriel Piozzi, who (like Frances) was in a position of financial need and struggled to avoid being sucked into Thrale’s needy generosity. With Piozzi, Thrale won out and married him, which took the pressure off Frances, though it marked the decline of their friendship.

The dynamics in the Burney and Thrale households show the complex dynamics of the day around real, pretended, and demanded concern for others. The acceptance of family duty was real, but could be negotiated and managed. One might choose to give the appearance of compliance with unreasonable demands from a calculated estimate of the alternatives and consequences.

If Frances‘s stepmother Elizabeth Burney emerges as a two-faced toady and tyrant, Hester Thrale appears as the not-entirely-self-aware emotional manipulator, who is foiled because Frances both genuinely likes her and sees her flaws. Both households revolved around men who had a stake in being oblivious to those dynamics, as long as they were catered to.

Frances directly tackled the negative side of companionship in her novel Cecelia, written during her greatest struggles with Thrale, in the person of an antagonist who is fairly transparently modeled on Frances‘s stepmother (a repeating theme). The work also shows a deep distrust of marriage and male authority figures as sources of security, despite ending in a conventional marriage plot.

But before a third novel could be written, Frances’s life went through major changes. Thrale drifted away after her marriage to Piozzi, and her circle dissolved. Frances’s mentor Crisp died. And when Frances joined an elderly friend in London, the friend (Mary Delaney, who will feature in chapter 8) for complex reasons brought Frances to the attention of the king and queen. The Burney family turned their attention to pressuring Frances to get a post at court that could benefit them all through favors and appointments.

But the post available was a fairly undistinguished one: second keeper of the robes, serving under a tyrannical woman who was a close friend and confidant of the queen. It was not a position likely to offer power or access without a greater willingness to dissemble than Frances was willing to embrace. Rather than supporting her writing time, the social duties of the post offered no easy escape. One could perform submission, or one could suffer.

In many ways, Frances’s relationship to her supervisor and to the queen repeated her relationship to her stepmother and her father. Had she been willing to toady, she might have gained the benefits her family hoped for. She never overtly blamed the queen for her situation, although the queen was almost certainly aware of her friend’s cruelty. (These cruelties are listed in some detail.)

Frances lasted for five years in the position. She left when she decided the situation would literally kill her if it went on. At the last she pressed for the favors her family had wanted, but when they were refused, Frances won some respect by her decision to leave her post with no further negotiation.

She was given a pension. She was now free of responsibilities and had an income that freed her from her father’s home and allowed her to write, but only as she wanted. It also put her in a position to marry a surprising choice: a penniless aristocratic French Catholic emigré (we’re into revolutionary times here) who had fallen mutually in love with her and offered her equal companionship, not patriarchal tyranny.

Frances return to writing novels in order to buy a house for the couple. As the breadwinner in the family, Frances was no longer in a vulnerable position and her husband seems to have been content to play the role of companion.

The house-buying novel Camilla once more featured a scheming toady of a companion, though played broadly for comic purposes this time. But perhaps her experiences had taught Frances not to expect such characters to meet their just desserts. The book allows the character to pass through the plot untouched and unmarred by the chaos in the wake of her manipulations. Once more, marriage is on display as a poor option, despite it being the eventual fate of the heroine.

Frances’s last novel again returns to the theme of the female tyrant who has bought into patriarchal structures and uses them to persecute the heroine--a transparent stand-in for the author in prevailing by steadfast, but quiet resistance.

In summary, Frances Burney both experiences and describes some of the most pernicious aspects of companionship while also showing that they may be resisted and that a virtuous person may come through them, though not unscathed. Frances is thought by some to be an overly decorous doormat, but in the biting portrayals of her fiction we can see how deliberate and calculated that performance was as a survival tactic. For most of her life she avoided both marriage and the position of companion, insisting on the less profitable role of friend, until she chose for herself an equal companion as a husband.

The problem of altruism runs through all her books. How do you continue to be a good and giving person when those around you are users and abusers?

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Saturday, September 19, 2020 - 07:00

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 176 (previously 50c) - Book Appreciation: 17-18th century Stories in England and France - transcript

(Originally aired 2020/09/19 - listen here)

Between the books that I’m covering on the blog, and this month’s essay on 17th century poet Katherine Philips, I thought I’d complete the theme by looking at some sapphic historical fiction set in England and France in the 17th and 18th centuries. I’ve deliberately cut the list off before anything that has the flavor of a Regency romance, as that’s a distinct separate category. So these books start after the death of Queen Elizabeth of England and go up through the era of the French revolution.

I had about 30 possible titles in my database, although I may not mention them all. The 17th century is rather under-represented with only 5 titles, and only one of those from the first half of the century. But the remaining titles in the 18th century are fairly evenly distributed. England is much better represented than France, and most books set in France are revolutionary stories. A few of the books have fantasy elements or take place in an alternate fantasy version of the setting, but most are rooted in the real world. And when I started sorting them out into thematic groups, there were 5 obvious clusters and one group of “leftovers”. Biographical novels of real people, stories involving complex relationship tangles, stories involving pirates, stories involving highwaymen, stories set during the French revolution, and then the miscellaneous group.

Unlike the new book listings, I won’t be doing dramatic readings of the cover copy, but there will be links in the show notes for all the books I discuss—even the ones that are out of print, alas!

Biographical Novels

It wasn’t any surprise to me that Emma Donoghue takes pride of place in the biographical group. This is the era that is the focus of her non-fiction book Passions Between Women which, as always, I recommend highly. Neither of the books she contributes to this list can be considered romances, though Life Mask does depict the main character as attaining a happy romantic relationship. Life Mask is a detailed fictional biography of sculptor Anne Damer in the later 18th century. It’s full of a wealth of detail about society and politics of the time—perhaps an overwhelming wealth if you aren’t looking for that sort of read. The book’s strength is exactly that depth of knowledge about the historic period and the emotional lives of the people in it. It was definitely my kind of book; perhaps it will be yours as well.

I haven’t read the other Donoghue book on this list, Slammerkin. Set in roughly the same era, this is a darker story, of a working-class girl who longs to take hold of her own destiny and considers morals and respectability something of a handicap to that end. I should caution potential readers that the book definitely does not have a happy ending, but it’s a gripping and realistic tale imagining the inner life of a real woman.

Kelly Gardiner’s book Goddess, which follows the life of late 17th century French swordswoman, opera singer, and all-around libertine Julie d’Aubigny, defies categorization beyond being the story of a larger-than-life woman who loved both women and men passionately, if not wisely, and dared the world to try to slow her down. The novel is written in a somewhat eclectic narrative style, which may challenge some readers, but I loved the gritty depiction of d’Aubigny’s life.

The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson has the earliest setting of all the books discussed today. Set during the reign of England’s King James I, in the anti-Catholic wake of the Gunpowder Plot and amid the terror of witch trials, Agnes Nutter a wealthy gentlewoman becomes caught up in an infamous witch trial near Pendle Hill. Based on reviews, Winterson has mixed in a bit of real magic with the history, and there are disturbing depictions of torture—true to the times, but not always what people want in their fiction.

Complex Relationships

When you look at the lives of historical women in the 17-18th century who had romantic or sexual relations with other women, an aspect that modern readers of lesbian fiction can feel uncomfortable engaging with is the separation between people’s emotional lives and the social and economic pressures of marriage. Yes, there were many women who did not marry, and it’s always possible to design a story the dodges the question that way. But in a context where women didn’t necessarily expect to be in love with the man they married, then not being in love with men at all wasn’t an obvious reason to avoid marriage. And as the historical studies currently being covered in the blog point out, this was an era when people didn’t expect a clear-cut distinction between desire for men and desire for women.

This next set of books are ones that focus on women who have married or expect to marry a man, but don’t see that as incompatible with relationships with women. Again, I’ve only read one of the books in this group, so it’s possible that I’ve been misled by the descriptions.

The glittering court of Versailles is the setting of Saga Hillbom’s Today Dauphine Tomorrow Nothing. The protagonist, Adélaide is a young—very young—noblewoman, brought to court for an arranged marriage to the king’s grandson. As was often the case, personal fulfilment was not a priority in the marriage and she is caught up in court politics. But in the arms of the servant girl Colette, she may have found love at last. This is a realistic tale of court life, not a fluffy romance. And a romantic relationship with a servant was more likely to be considered forbidden because of class than gender. But the book looks to be solidly written and deserves a closer look. (I just wish her books were available outside of Amazon, since that’s a sticking point for me.)

Kim Finney’s Under the Microscope is about as opposite to court life as you can imagine. Set during the reign of King Charles II, Ezzabell Chetwood is set apart from the vibrant life of London, working as her husband’s assistant in the new scientific field of microscopic investigation and illustration. When her husband pressures her to take on the frivolous Thomasin Dansby as her companion, both of them need to find accommodation to their new relationship. An unusual premise for a historical novel but one with potential for exploring a very specific landscape and setting. I’ve had this one on my iPad since it first came out a year ago and look forward to moving it up my reading schedule.

The Arrival of Lady Suthmeer by Connie Valientis is much more in the fluffy romantic comedy vein. Lavinia is looking for a convenient marriage that won’t get in the way of her ongoing affair with Lady Georgia Suthmeer. But both Lady Suthmeer and Lord Suthmeer have their own reasons for interfering with Lavinia’s marriage plans, and her betrothed has inconveniently decided to defend her honor. The plot is more of an erotic romp than a conventional romance but highly entertaining. Alas the historic grounding is somewhat vague. I have it down in my data base as “maybe 1790?” on the basis of the clothing in the cover illustration, but honestly I have no idea exactly when it’s set.

There’s something of a mid-18th century Gothic tone to the description of L.S. Johnson’s Harkworth Hall. Caroline Daniels has no suitors she likes as much as her friend Diana, but one must marry after all, and Sir Edward Masterson is an acceptable solution to her financial problems. But Edward has also acquired the decrepit Harkworth Hall and its sinister secrets and Caroline may need the assistance from an unexpected new friend to get out in one piece. Note: The cover copy for later books in the series have some spoilers for what’s really going on, so if you dislike spoilers, you might want to just plunge in. Me? I just bought the three book series, so maybe I can tell you more about it sometime in the future.

Pirates

Given that the 17-18th century form a core part of the so-called “Age of Sail” it may not be surprising to find a number of pirate-themed books in my list. One of these days I really do need to do a pirate-themed show. But for now, let’s focus on the three books in this group where the action sticks close to Europe, rather than those set in the New World. These all appear to be set in the early 18th century and focused around English characters. And they all have a clear romance core, whether or not they fit the exact shape of a classic romance novel.

Lara Zielinsky’s The Queen’s Gift looks like a romantic romp in which prospective lady in waiting Lady Anne Coleridge is sidetracked by an encounter with the pirate captain “Bloody Mary.”

The real-life characters of Anne Bonny and Mary Reade have inspired many a sapphic pirate romance. The one I picked to include here is Miriam McNamara’s The Unbinding of Mary Reade. Taking the point of view of young Mary as she disguises herself as a boy to run away to sea, we see the gritty side of the pirate life as well as the romantic one.

One of the tropes of the pirate romance, regardless of gender, is that experience of being swept away against your will—whether emotionally or physically—and having your future turned upside down. That happens to Ianna McClarrin in Jessie Gutiérrez’s Spanish Eyes. As her father escorts her to an uncertain future and an unwanted marriage, Ianna’s destiny changes in a moment when their ship is boarded by pirates.

Highwaymen

When it comes to highwayman—or rather, highwaywoman—novels, I already did an entire episode on this theme, which I’ve linked in the show notes, including one of my all-time favorites in this genre, Rebeccah and the Highwayman by Barbara Davies. But let’s focus on a couple of books that I discovered after putting that show together.

Eleanor Musgrove’s The Highwayman reimagines the characters of the Alfred Noyes poem as a female couple—as have other works in this genre. It’s a fairly straightforward retelling in short-story form but turns the original poem’s tragic ending into one with hope.

The highwaywoman Alice Payne, in Kate Heartfield’s Alice Payne Arrives (and its sequel Alice Payne Rides) only starts out in the 18th century, after which this time-traveling adventure takes off for other eras. So not exactly a true-to-the times historic novel, but a great deal of fun.

French Revolution

As the discussion on the blog shows, the French revolution is a time when sapphic themes became mainstream politics, whether in the accusations against Queen Marie Antoinette and her ladies-in-waiting, or in the mysterious and almost certainly mythical Anandrine Society, said to be a hotbed of lesbian sex among aristocratic women and revolutionaries alike. Two of the three books included here have fantasy elements along with the historical adventure.

The very recent release Belle Revolte by Linsey Miller takes place in an alternate fantasy-France in which the aristocratic Emilie des Marais, who longs to study medicine, and the working-class Annette Boucher, who wants nothing more than to learn magic, swap places to realize their dreams on the eve of revolution. Although this is a queer story, be aware that it’s not a romance.

Kat Dunn’s Dangerous Remedy similarly has elements of magic, but is more solidly grounded in our own France. We are offered a rag-tag group of misfits, saving people from the guillotine in Scarlet-Pimpernelish fashion. But Camile, daughter of a revolutionary, finds herself torn between ideals and love when their latest rescue is a mysterious woman with strange powers. A central romance without being a romance novel, and possibly the start of a series?

Reflected Passion by Erica Lawson is a more traditional sapphic romance, with a bit of cross-cultural, cross-class longing. Widowed countess Françoise Marie Aurélie de Villerey was broken by her unhappy marriage and settles for sex without love until the encounters nouveau-riche Bostonian Dale Wincott, groomed for a promising marriage but trying out a sideline as a furniture restorer. That’s…an unexpected twist. Oh, wait, this one has a fantasy twist too. The two women are also from different times, and connect through a portal in an antique mirror. In a weird way, that makes the plot make a bit more sense. This could go in almost any direction with that premise. But it’s interesting that, in the end, all my revolutionary picks have fantasy elements.

Other

There are three other books that didn’t fit neatly into any of the above categories that I want to spotlight. The first two are out of print, alas, and like several other f/f historicals written in the ‘90s, I’d love it if someone arranged for them to come back into print. This is a duology by Jay Taverner: Rebellion and Hearts and Minds. I say “duology” though the cover copy doesn’t mention any overlapping characters. Let’s go ahead and give the full descriptions of them.

Rebellion is a lesbian love story. It's 1715 in Somerset, a feudal world of aristocrats, peasants and the remnants of religious freedom. But this is a year marked out for political violence on a grand scale, the first of the Jacobite uprisings. Hope, a gamekeeper's daughter, and the Lady Isabella are girls of sixteen when all around them a way of life is changing. Perforce, the teenagers of Rebellion learn as fast as they can about the perils of war. More importantly, they unravel the devious, loving attentions of class and family to find each other.

Hearts and Minds takes up where Rebellion left off, but is complete in itself. Into a far from peaceful English village comes the charismatic actor Mr Brown and his touring company. Lucy, a young black washerwoman, soon finds that Brown is not quite what he seems. But their snatched moments together will not keep her happy for long. As the atmosphere in the poverty-stricken village intensifies, charges of witchcraft and child murder lead to a series of tragedies and close escapes.

I read Rebellion back when it first came out in 1997 and would love to find time to re-visit it. Somehow I missed Hearts and Minds and now it only seems to be listed at collector prices. I’d love to find out if the reference to the touring actor “Mr.” Brown is actually gender-queer actress Charlotte Charke, who went by that name sometimes. When I did some research to see if I could track down Jay Taverner, it turns out it’s a pen name for a writing duo who are both now enjoying careers in academia. (Why am I not surprised?)

The last title I want to mention follows a classic gender-disguise trope. The book is Passing as Elias by Kate Bloomfield. In 18th century England, Elizabeth Searson must pose as a man to claim inheritance of an apothecary’s shop, but what happens when she falls in love? There are a lot of advantages to living as a man that she isn’t eager to give up. And, hey, there it is in the iBooks store! Bought! Having peeked at the ending, I can note that despite the gender-disguise trope the character identifies as a woman—something I usually want to represent accurately and which isn’t always clear from the cover copy.

So there you are: a small shelf’s worth of sapphic fiction set in 17th and 18th century England and France. But as you can see, there’s plenty of scope for more—especially outside these few favored tropes. It’s interesting to me that this list doesn’t deeply delve into the possibilities of the female-centered world of the salons, the Bluestockings, or the convenient proximity of a lady’s companion. So much scope! So many possibilities!

Show Notes

In the Book Appreciation segments, our featured authors (or your host) will talk about one or more favorite books with queer female characters in a historic setting.

In this episode we talk about:

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

Links to Heather Online

Major category: 
LHMP
Friday, September 18, 2020 - 21:00

OK, maybe that isn't the nicest tag line for this chapter in Rizzo's book, but Elizabeth Chudleigh wasn't a very nice person. And yet, as I summed up this chapter, I couldn't help but dwell on how very gendered our impressions of people's behavior can be. Someone who is strong-willed, knows what they want and goes after it in clever and single-minded ways, knows how--and when--to be charming, and when they don't have to bother with it. These are all things that can either be admirable or hateful depending on our relation to the person and our expectations for their behavior. Chudleigh treated the women who were her companions abominably. She was a user, and couldn't bear not to be the star of every show. But neither did she bother to play the accommodating and submissive mistress to the various noblemen she cut a swath through. When she found one she wanted to marry, she strategized like a general and accomplished her goal. And somehow she escaped serious consequences for any of her transgressions. It's hard not to have at least a crumb of admiration. Just never rely on someone like her for anything you seriously need.

And if you ever need a colorful antagonist for your heroine, you could do worse than Elizabeth Chudleigh! Who knows, the right romance plot might even redeem her. But I doubt it.

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 4: Elizabeth Chudleigh and her Maids of Honor

Elizabeth Chudleigh’s life and career read like a fictional character--perhaps Manley’s Duchess of Cleveland in The Adventures of Rivella. Manley’s characters were powerful, profligate, and passionate. Chudleigh took as her model the Restoration image of the courtly woman, though her own career started around 1740. But the allowances made for larger-than-life figures in that previous era were no longer made when Chudleigh was tried for bigamy in her 50s and escaped penalty only through rank and exile.

She wrote a memoir in her 80s that reveals a startling lack of reflection and insight, but matches the characters in Manley’s fiction--nearly a century earlier--very closely. She spent lavishly on display while-being miserly behind the scenes. Her moods were mercurial and exaggerated, following every whim. Manley had been writing a satire on women of her day. But Chudleigh was out of step with changing ideals of behavior. While Rizzo’s portrait is severe, she notes that Chudleigh’s contemporaries were even harder on her.

Elizabeth Chudleigh was born into a respectable gentry family of moderate means. Both her parents were impulsive and pugnacious in temperament, setting a model for her own behavior. Elizabeth was beautiful, charming, and ambitious. She was witty, though not particularly intelligent. And she was used to having her own way. She gained a reputation for being brave in defense of her own interests--traveling with pistols at hand to protect the jewels she was never without.

At age 20 she became a maid of honor in the household of the Prince of Wales (the son of George II and father of the future George III). Having been taken on as a protégé by the Earl of Bath, one thing she learned was how to arrange favors for people without any expense to herself, which helped build her sphere of influence.

She had no loyalties except to herself and openly proclaimed that she changed her friends as she changed her dress. Chudleigh climbed the ladder of influence at court despite a secret marriage (disclaimed after the death of their son).

She had the knack of making powerful nobleman fall in love with her, including King George II who evidently was charmed by her performance in a court mask in a costume so revealing it was considered scandalous. She was mistress to a succession of powerful men and used the opportunities to live lavishly and enrich herself. She traveled extensively in Europe, leaving her ducal lover of the time to stew at home in order to leverage a marriage proposal from him.

This required the expedient of getting an annulment of her discarded marriage. While the marriage lasted, no one seriously challenged the fiction. But her greed to be named heir to the duke’s fortune was the last straw for the duke’s sister (and mother of the heir to his title). After the Duke‘s death, Chudleigh was indicted for bigamy. The charge was upheld, but conveniently Chudleigh’s discarded first husband had just become an Earl. That meant Chudleigh still had the necessary rank to avoid physical punishment for bigamy (branding).

She took her fortune into exile on the continent  where her charm and never fulfilled promises to make various people her heir gained her welcome at various courts until her eventual death in Russia.

But how does all this relate to the topic of companions?

Chudleigh maintained three to six companions at any given time that she referred to as her “maids of honor” in reference to her time in that position for the Princess of Wales. She was not part of fashionable society--her circles tended more toward the Duke’s associates, and women who owed her favors, or hoped for them. For companionship she surrounded herself with young beautiful accomplished women…but fell into a rage if they were paid attention in place of her. Chudleigh attracted them with promises of making connections for good marriages or help securing pensions, but never actually carried through.

Rizzo suggests that her jealous behavior towards her companions implied they might have been her lovers on occasion as well, but the footnote for this offers no direct evidence.  Chudleigh would definitely have been aware of lesbian activity around the court, and two of her intimate friends in her youth (back when she still had actual friends) were said to frequent a lesbian bordello.

[Note: What’s this, you say? A lesbian bordello? Well, clearly I need to track down this reference. The citation is from E.J. Burford in Wits, Wenches, and Wantons (London: Robert Hale, 1986) which, per Rizzo, “notes that eighteenth-century lesbian bordellos existed at Mother Courage’s in Suffolk Street and Frances Bradshaw’s in Bow Street and that Harrington and Ashe [Chudleigh’s friends] were patrons, but he gives no sources.” Well, I’ll see for myself because I just ordered it.]

In addition to accompanying her to social events, Chudleigh’s companions were expected to attend when she went visiting (and to wait in the carriage while she did so). They kept her company at meals, sat with her while she napped, suffered her temper if she lost at cards, served as ushers at her entertainments, and during one. Period when she was denying the duke her bed, had them sit up in shifts through the night while she slept.

Brief biographies are offered of some of Chudleigh’s companions: an impoverished cousin (she often chose relatives), a woman who had worked her way up through the servants’ hierarchy (an atypical case of not sticking to one’s own class), and one woman, ostensibly a foundling left on Chudleigh’s doorstep, but rumored to be her own daughter, raised by Chudleigh’s mother, than taken on as an attendant. After a somewhat confused episode in Chudleigh’s absence, when the Duke was either made to take the girl (presumably his daughter as well) as mistress, or may even have done so, the girl was so badly treated by the jealous Chudleigh that she appears to have committed suicide.

Two companions are particularly noteworthy. Miss Bate was with Chudleigh for an extended period and was a mainstay during the lead-up to her marriage to the Duke. She was included in travels to Europe. Miss Bate was half-sister to two of Chudleigh’s male friends and Chudleigh arranged that a pension that had been paid to Miss Bate’s mother was transferred to Miss Bate (saving Chudleigh from having to cover her expenses). Miss Bate might well have continued attending her in her exile after the Duke’s death except that the Duke had left her a small annuity in his will, which enraged Chudleigh so much she cast her off. Whereupon Miss Bate married a clergyman in Bath and lived as happily as may be expected.

Miss Penrose, a rather younger woman than Miss Bate, was also with Chudleigh through her marriage and the death of the Duke. She accompanied Chudleigh into exile on the continent. She was a clergyman’s daughter and a distant relative of Chudleigh and was probably the model for the “virtuous companion” character in Foote’s play “A Trip to Calais.” But Penrose evidently kept Chudleigh’s goodwill to the end. The evidence of this is the legacies Chudleigh left various members of the Penrose family, though they were mostly worthless or had already been sold or lost before the will was executed.

Rizzo points out that the behavior that seems so outrageous in Chudleigh can be seen as unremarkable or only mildly exaggerated male behaviors. She broke the rules of feminine behavior of the time, claimed male prerogatives, performed male-coded actions, and exploited the women around her with the same callous disregard that men were wont to. Except for the matter of a lack of female solidarity, she might be viewed as a feminist icon.

She had no close friends among fashionable women but was never actually ostracized. She was received at court and her entertainments were well attended. But to those dependent on her provision and good will, she was a tyrant who would allow no rival or equals.

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Wednesday, September 16, 2020 - 20:00

As I read through Rizzo's book, a number of thoughts have been coalescing with respect to plotting out historical f/f romances. Those thoughts aren't necessarily tied directly to the subject of the chapter, but are building as the various threads weave together.

Today I was thinking about how the avoidance or disparagement of marriage is treated in history as contrasted with how it is typically expressed in f/f historicals. The modern approach tends to be: "A distaste for heterosexual marriage is either a consequence of, or a telling symptom of a sexual preference for women. You can tell the heroine is a lesbian because she has always thought of marriage with revulsion."

But when you look at historic attitudes in the 18th century, women had all sorts of reasons for wishing they didn't have to marry. A fear of repeated pregnancy might be enough. Many women--though sometimes only in private correspondence--saw marriage as a form of servitude. Marriage generally meant an end to having the autonomy to pursue one's own interests, especially intellectual interests. A wife was legally at the mercy of her husband's commands and whims, and even a benevolent husband could control her associations, her movements, and her experiences.

Outside of marriage, a woman's reputation was far more at risk from an intimate relationship with a man than his was in the same circumstance. A male lover might not have legal power over a woman's life, but he had the social power to ruin her at no detriment to himself.

All of these are perfectly good reasons for an 18th century woman to find reasons not to marry, without any need for people to assume that she preferred women sexually.

In fact, sexual preference was generally considered irrelevant to the question of marriage, in both men and women. One married for reasons of economics, family connections, and social aspirations. "Enthusiastic consent" to the resulting sexual relationship was not a consideration. And given patterns of socializing, marriage was little hindrence to a woman pursuing a sexual relationship with a female friend, as long as her husband didn't feel rejected as a result.

Of course, the conventions of romance novels lead one to expect the romantic leads to aspire to an exclusive relationship with the object of one's affections. But perhaps we need to expand the paradigms for queer historical romances, rather than confining ourselves to a model invented for heterosexuals.

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter - 3 Satires of Tyrants and Toad eaters: Fielding and Collier

“Toad eater“ was first recorded in the 1740s, with the explanation (whether true or not) that it was based on a traveling performer’s show trick demonstrating the ability of the performer to neutralize poison by having his assistant eat toads, which were thought to be poisonous. Thus the term referred to someone forced to do something nauseating in a subservient position.

The name toad-eater (eventually “toady”) was applied at the time to both political and social contexts, including domestic employees. Once having been named, this relationship became more of a focus of observation and discussion than it had been previously. It was regularly associated with the position of companion, though in fictional portrayals, it is often accompanied by disappointment and failure of the companion’s goals. (Perhaps as punishment for socially stigmatized behavior?) From a different angle, companions were also the depicted as holding grudges against their patrons and taking opportunities for revenge, whether small or great.

The defining of toad-eating as a behavior of a subservient companion or client also highlighted the role of the tyrant in the relationship. toad-eating would not be necessary except as a response to the tyrannical exercise of power.

In both politics and at home, tyranny was most easily recognized in others, and when experienced, not in oneself when wielded.

Within the context of domestic tyranny, authors regularly saw the parallels of marriage and companionship. The book gives extensive examples of fictional characters making this overt comparison in novels by Sarah Fielding.

Fielding‘s friend Jane Collier wrote books even more pointedly exploring the dynamics of domestic tyranny and how women might escape it. Education was considered key to eliminating the situation. Collier wrote biting satires similar to those of Jonathan Swift. One chapter of her essay “On the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting” is devoted to the relationship of mistress and companion. As a tendency to tyranny was endemic in mankind, she explains, it could only be prevented by careful attention to children’s education in benevolence and the proper treatment of others. Her work explored this concept by means of satirical instruction in psychological and emotional abuse. Collier’s book is brief on the subject of husbands, and declines to directly attack the institution of marriage, but though less detailed, her treatment of tyrannical husbands again focuses on the techniques of emotional abuse.

A common moral theme of this and similar works is that in subjugating her own judgment and integrity and performing according to the demands of her mistress, a companion’s moral character may be undermined in actual fact. But while this lesson appears in works authored by both women and men, male authors tended to see the performance of tyranny--when situationally available--to be a female trait. Put women in a position of power and they will abuse it. Male authors were less apt to recognize a pattern of similar male behavior in marriage. Female authors saw this parallel clearly. The same analysis of the negative possibilities inherent in the companion arrangement led men to conclude that women will inevitably of abuse power, and women to conclude that all those with power will inevitably abuse it.

This masculine interpretation of the effects of female authority generated a trope of the abusive mistress and angelic, complying companion. While female authors saw that compliance as a moral hazard on its own, male authors saw it as a test and proof of the companion’s suitability as a wife. They anticipated a willingness to perform the same compliance within marriage for a husband. The companion character in a male-authored novel typically found resolution in being rescued by an offer of marriage. She would continue to perform the same subservient role, but now within the approved context of marriage where such behavior was “natural” (as in Samuel Foote’s farce “A trip to Calais”).

 

Time period: 
Place: 
Tuesday, September 15, 2020 - 18:00

The introduction to this book uses various characters in Jane Austen's Emma to illustrate the social dynamics of companions. But once you start looking for companionate relationships in Austen, you see them all over the place. And that variety helps illustrate the function and dynamics of what's going on. Let's take a little tour.

In Sense and Sensibility, we don't see any of the central characters in a formal position of companion, but we see plenty of examples of the sort of extended visiting that could shade into a de facto companion role. When Elinor and Marianne travel to London with Mrs Jennings, they are clearly in a sort of "client" position to her--getting room and board in return for their company, and sometimes decidedly under pressure to put up with her whims and behaviors. The two Miss Steeles also spend time getting their "living" from being company to the mistress of the household who hosts them They are depicted as much more willing to perform the role of companion, cozying up to their hostess with flattery and a willingness to put up with their children's whims.

In Pride and Prejudice, we again see unmarried women varying their circumstances socially through extended serial visiting, whether which relatives (the Gardiners in London and while traveling) or friends (Lizzie's visit with Charlotte after her marriage). Caroline Bingley serves as her brother's hostess in what would be a companion role if she were performing it for a woman. A more direct example is Lydia's invitation to be companion to Colonel Foster's wife. As Mr. Bennett notes, the excursion costs him little--she will be supplied with room and board. And Mrs. Foster gains a social companion in the context of a military camp where even an officer's wife might be subject to harrassment if she went about on her own.

In Mansfield Park, we see many of the fictional themes about companionship. From the start, Fanny Price is trained up as a compliant and biddable companion to her aunts. Her presence and willingness to perform household tasks are taken for granted and taken advantage of. She is treated as having no desires, needs, and will of her own. And yet all of this occurs under the veneer that she is a member of the family and that there is no social stigma on those occasions when she is treated as such in public. Another theme (which is discussed later in Rizzo's book) is that a "good companion" is viewed as proving herself as a good prospective wife. Edmund may stand up for Fanny on occasion, but in the end he recognizes that Fanny's steadfast virtue through her trials has proven her to be an ideal wife.

Examples of companion themes in Emma have been discussed already. In Northanger Abbey we again see the "extended serial visiting" theme, as well as the precarious position that a single woman is placed in when her day-to-day life relies on the benevolence of her hosts. But it's in Persuasion that we see the companion role from multiple angles. Anne Elliot has, in essence, been turned into a companion within her own family. She is passed off to whichever relative or family friend has a use for her company. While living with her sister Mary, she is expected to tend the children, negotiate between Mary and her in-laws, and be the solid rock in every crisis. (And, of course, in the end, this is what convinces Captain Wentworth that she's still the woman for him.) But Elizabeth Elliot's friend Mrs Clay is set up to be a bad example of a companion. She is widowed (with children who are somehow conveniently dispensed with) and of a lower social class than the Elliots, which is pointedly remarked on as making her an unsuitable companion for Elizabeth. (There's an interesting contrast between how Mrs Clay's social background is held against her, while Captain Wentworth is allowed to rise above his origins by virtue of his accomplishments.) Mrs. Clay is an obvious "toad-eater", constantly flattering the Elliots in order to maintain their good graces. But she also emobodies one of the negative tropes about fictional companions, in that she is shown to have underhanded goals that are at oddes with those of her hosts,, with a suggestion of malice or revenge as a motivation.

Various of these companionate relationships have been used as jumping-off places for sapphic Austen fan-fiction, especially those in Emma. But even more than the specifics of these particular stories, they show how unmarried women might be brought into close physical and emotional proximity within the ordinary structures of society in ways that can provide all manner of inspiration for the f/f historical romance writer.

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 2 - The Social Economics

The chapter begins with a list of advertisements from 1772 either from people looking to hire female companions or from women offering themselves as such. The ads represent a wide variety of situations and job requirements. When compensation is discussed it’s in terms of room and board or, in some cases, only partial room and board. The ads—surprisingly--include requests or offers of female companions for men. In some cases, explicitly excluding the possibility of sexual services. Some ads explicitly specify that no wage is asked because the woman in question is not looking to be a servant.

These ads show the variability of the concept of companion. In addition to the tasks of providing company, the positions might include housekeeper, governess, lady’s maid, and in some cases--in coded language--a suggestion of sexual services for men. Men looking for a female companion were typically looking for a substitute wife, without the bonds of marriage involved.

For middle-class households, the position of companion typically involves multiple job. Only in an upper class household was the position likely to be purely that of a social companion and attendant. The higher the companion’s social status, the more unseemly it would be for her to receive payment for this position. The primary goal was to secure a place to live. The status of a companion was precarious and was affected by what tasks she was asked to perform, and how she was included in the activities of the family (or not).

Despite the variety of companion positions, some clear patterns emerge which this book will illustrate. Compared to ads for servants, ads for companions were relatively few. Most companionship arrangements were set up within the extended family or among social acquaintances.

Companions filled a genuine need in the household. Single women generally didn’t have the financial resources to live a solitary life. In public, companionship was needed for respectability. Much of everyday life, and most daily socializing, was gender-segregated. The mistress might be accompanied by her maid for shopping, but she couldn’t turn to servants for company out in society, or for emotional support.

In novels, when women go into public alone it is a marked state and one of overwhelming purpose. Women alone were subject to insult and harassment. Women novelists were much concerned with the hazards and difficulties for solitary female protagonists, even when their characters overcame them. Working-class women, of course, had different expectations, and some fictional heroines used working class disguise as a means of surviving alone in the world.

Upper and middle class women who lived “alone“ had a staff, both male and female. But even in this context, it was more acceptable for an older woman then a younger one to live alone.

A companion solved many problems for an unmarried woman but was also convenient for a married one. In social negotiations, even friends might have competing agendas. A companion was an advisor and confidant assumed to be loyal. A companion could serve as social secretary, shouldering some of the complex burdens of being an active hostess. The companion was expected to be available at any time to “fill in” socially as needed without having social needs of her own. They also removed the burden of wives being expected to provide sole company for their husbands--a key role, given that marriages weren’t particularly arranged for the satisfactory emotional lives of the couple.

The understanding that a companion was of an equivalent social status to her mistress was essential for pride on both sides of the relationship. A companion needed the illusion of being a member of the family to maintain her own social status, and a mistress could not present the possibility that she was treating an inferior as a social companion.

Because this understanding precluded the possibility of offering a salary, the needs and desires of companions were met via a delicate negotiation of gifts. (A companion might also have a small income of her own from other sources that weren’t enough to support her, but might be enough for personal expenses.)

Economic forces behind companionship revolved largely around gendered inheritance practices. To enhance and maintain family position, resources primarily went to the oldest son. Providing an unmarried daughter with enough to live independently was impractical and undesirable. Middle or upper-class women of this era had few opportunities for paid labor that wouldn’t destroy their, and their family's, reputation. Paid work was a last resort if no family support was available.

Single women who had enough funds to maintain a household fell in several general categories. They might be widowed, with a sufficient settlement, or even inheriting her husband’s property if there were no higher claim on the inheritance. She might be a daughter with no brothers (if the property were not entailed).

Marriage was the primary route for converting a nominal dowery to a livable independent income, but it required the right combination of surviving one’s spouse, the right number and type of children, and good financial choices at all stages. (Dowries were not the only enticement women had to attract husbands. Family connections and influence could be just as important.)

Women who declined marriage or failed to secure one were considered to be at fault for their financial circumstances. So economics were as strong--if not stronger—a force in women’s ability to live alone than social conventions. One must also remember that living “alone“ in a respectable fashion meant supporting a multi-person household, to say nothing of the expenses of a social life.

Barring the luck to have an “independence”, acceptable sources of income for a single woman might include combining the income (that is, annuities, interest, and family stipends) of multiple women living together. Another method was accepting money from what were, in effect, lodgers. Or one could reduce expenses by living outside London and not participating in high society.

Sarah Scott’s utopian novel Millenium Hall goes into these economic negotiations in great detail, when her characters brainstorm how to set up the living arrangements of their commune. Scott’s attitudes, as expressed in the novel, disparage marriage for women who could work, but she was outright scornful of the “occupation“ of companion. While not overtly equating it with marriage, the implication is there.

Like Mary Astell before her, Scott envisioned an independent community of single women whose shared resources and skills could remove the need for marriage as women’s only viable option. Many of Scott’s ideas came out of discussions among a group of women living in Bath who are concerned with women’s status and place in the world. Several members of this circle expressed their ideas in fiction.

A common theme in their work is that women who enter unworthy marriages or become companions do so to avoid losing the standard of living and social position they were raised in. (Though who can blame them.) These works often featured women in intentional communities, and their own circle could be seen as an implementation of some of those ideals.

The greatest moral hazard from companionship, they asserted, was toadying to those who had power over your life. Toadying is a small step to other immoral behaviors, because it focuses on hypocritical actions to establish and maintain one’s position and security.

The utopian communities the Bath circle envisioned were egalitarian--except for the servants of course--and allowed for autonomy in daily life once the administrative responsibilities were shared out. Millenium Hall was not a democracy but a means of freeing middle and upper class women from marriage and the marriage-like position of companion.

Scott did attempt a limited real-life Millenium Hall, unsuccessfully, but that it was attempted at all is noteworthy. Scott’s Bath circle itself speaks to one driving force in the institution of companionship: the need for women to create a supportive community in the face of social structures that excluded them.

Time period: 
Place: 
Monday, September 14, 2020 - 19:00

Both Wahl's study that I just finished covering, and Rizzo's, which will take up the next couple weeks, have very practical applications for authors of f/f historical romance. They explore the spaces in society where women came into close and intimate social contact in ways that were publicly established and accepted. Although Wahl pointed out how suspicions of lesbianism intruded on women's social structures, and Rizzo includes examples of how the potential abuses of companionship included sexually-tinged ones, the fact remains that we're looking at social structures in which romantic and sexual relationships between women who were so inclined could flourish.

I bristle when f/f romance novels set in the 17-19th century make a big deal out of trying to get the characters alone in close proximity. Study the normal lives of women of these times and you'll find opportunities galore. Do you adore the trope "...and there was only one bed"? Bed-sharing was utterly normal and expected in many contexts. Your characters shouldn't be shocked or embarrassed. Tuck them in between the covers and let a heart-to-heart conversation inspire something more.

Need to find an excuse for your characters to share a household together? The oddity would be for an unmarried woman to live without another woman of her social class in the household. There can be any number of rational excuses: combining incomes, long-term visiting, a distant relationship. Some single women with no home of their own spend their entire adult lives as guests in a rotating succession of other people's households. Surely in one of them she can be delightfully surprised to find a permanent invitation?

Historical romance feels most realistic when the situation of the characters, their challenges, their misunderstandings, and the nature of their happy ending grow out of the actual circumstances and social dynamics of the time. There's so much inspiration here!

Major category: 
LHMP
Full citation: 

Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5

Publication summary: 

A collection of studies of women as “professional companions” in 18th century England, with especial consideration of the parallels the arrangement had to marriage.

Chapter 1 - Companionship a Range of Possible Choices

The content of this book is taken from letters, memoirs, and fiction produced by middle and upper class women. This is primarily a choice made due to the availability of materials. These woman talk about themselves, their lives, and their living conditions, both in personal and fictional representations. Less literate women must be studied by other means, alas.

The book focuses specifically on the institution of “female companions”. This was recognized as a specific social role, comprising the relationship of an employer, usually referred to as the mistress or sometimes patroness, and her companion. This arrangement resulted in an inherent difference of social status, although in theory the women were drawn from the same class. In functional ways, companionship mirrored the marriage structures of the time.

The book is organized as a collection of case studies or biographies that show the great variety of individual relationships. The mistress--especially if she is economically autonomous--has similar powers to that of a husband, with the same range of options for expressing them, from autocratic to benevolent. These expressions can be seen as a commentary on the ways in which the similar power was expressed by a husband.

Men’s views on companions mirrored their attitudes towards marriage: generally approving of a submissive, humble companion (who is viewed as ideal material for a good wife), while a tyrannical mistress was taken as evidence that women shouldn’t have authority. In the earlier 18th century, suspicions regarding women in authority were expressed as women being too irrational and passionate to use power properly. In the later part of the century, women were depicted as being by nature submissive and subordinate and thus unsuited to wielding authority. Men might recognize the dysfunctions within of marriage only when they saw them within companionship relationships.

This is one reason for including fictional accounts in the examples: they show how people thought about gender and relationships, not just how they were enacted in real life. Women’s writing reflects a range of comforts and dysfunctions that could be present within a companionship relationship that men were often oblivious to.

Not only were the power dynamics similar to marriage, but the day-to-day responsibilities were as well. They might begin with simple companionship, but also encompass household management, overseeing servants, and interfacing with neighbors, as well as tending to the mistress’s emotional needs. This social role being labeled “companion” sheds a different light on the underlying meaning of the term “companionate marriage”. A woman’s companion was not her equal in a functional sense, any more than a wife was equal to her husband. Both wives and companions were, in essence, the “head servant” of the household. (And many women used these exact terms to describe what was expected of them as a wife.)

This experience of marriage led many women to decline to enter it again, if widowed, even if their late husband had not been particularly tyrannical. Intelligent, educated women often found marriage constraining and tedious. Some went so far as to argue against the institution entirely, though recognizing the futility of such a call. The more radical expressions of anti-marriage sentiment faded after the reign of Queen Anne. Calls for women’s equality and fair treatment in marriage after that time were expressed primarily in fiction and plays. Even those were typically softened by being played for satire.

Disinterest in marriage due to the risk of pregnancy was expressed even more covertly, since procreation was considered to be woman’s purpose. Women’s negative commentary on perpetual pregnancy begin to surface more toward the end of the century.

During eras when direct negative commentary on marriage was out of favor, commentary via the function of companion was available as a substitute. Fictional portrayals in particular depicted the moral harm to a woman whose livelihood depended on subservience and devious work-arounds. At the same time, fictional depictions of the mistress in the relationship could counter the claim that women were submissive by nature.

Men saw the wife/companion parallel in a different way. A woman who has proven herself a compliant and useful companion to a woman was seen as a good marriage prospect.

Even independent women who found themselves in companion-like relationships, such as positions within the court hierarchy, use the marriage analogy as a means of accommodating themselves to a less than ideal work environment. (E.g., “my boss is a bitch, but I’m functionally married to her so I’ll just deal with the situation like I would with an unpleasant husband.”) Rizzo suggests that these analogies indicate that women didn’t think of marriage primarily in terms of sexuality, but of social and economic contracts.

An example of companionate relations can be found in Jane Austen’s Emma where Mrs. Weston is explicitly described as being prepared to be a wife by being Emma’s companion, and similarly that Emma treats Harriet as a wife-in-training. The personality traits that critics view as flaws in Emma would be unremarkable in a man of that era and class. In this context, the resolution of Emma’s marriage plot degrades her from full human being (i.e., husband-equivalent) to wife, and thus inferior.

There was an inevitable conflict when a woman was both a wife and the mistress of a companion. That was often the case: companions were not at all restricted to the households of single women. There is an example of this conflict provided from the marriage of Henry Fox and Lady Caroline, played out in correspondence when Caroline went to Bath accompanied by a woman who was usually the companion of one of her husband’s relatives. Caroline comments on the unwanted subservience of the woman and her husband bristles a bit at the implications that he expects that same subservience from Caroline.

The 18th century was an era concerned with identifying and challenging tyranny but domestic tyranny wasn’t easy to label. It was raised as a public topic most often by sons. Even when women’s complaints about a husband’s tyranny could only be made in private, men might publicly complain about the tyrrany of wives and mistresses purely on the grounds of having their authority and power questioned. (The problem of “if you’re privileged, equality feels like oppression.”)

With the rise of the concept of sensibility--an empathic reaction to the feelings and needs of others--this trait was assigned primarily to women, emphasizing how it naturally suited them for tending to those needs and feelings in others. Conduct manuals directed primarily at women worked to reinforce this trait, as well as others intended to shape women for a subservient role, such as modesty and delicacy. These traits were all defined as women’s “nature” without recognizing the contradiction that anything that must be so relentlessly taught and enforced can’t be natural. The men enjoining these traits on their wives and daughters presented themselves as having only benevolent intentions, but the end was to teach learned helplessness and hypocrisy.

Women might respond to domestic tyranny in various ways. One was to identify with the tyrant and become one when the opportunity arose, either in respect to one’s own subordinates or--as in fictional examples--women who became the “right-hand man” to assist a man in his domination of other women. Another response was to refocus one’s agency on situations where one could do good for others in a way one couldn't for oneself--to adopt altruism as a defense against helplessness. For 18th century women, altruism was obviously a more acceptable outlet. The literary example of this path is Sarah Scott’s utopian novel A Description of Millenium Hall.

When studying women’s companionate relationships it is evident that successful ones were those involving benevolent and altruistic responses both within the relationship and generally among communities of women. Negative reactions were best saved for outside the relationship and especially toward men. When both members of a companionship behaved benevolently toward each other, the result (as shown in the biographies in this collection) was greater prosperity for both.

If such women did not overtly call for the benevolence and equality that that were a goal within their relations to be made general in society, it was often due to placing those calls within a subversive, indirect context, such as the representation of companionship within fiction--an indirection necessary for them to be heard.

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