ENG 216 Essay: The Legal Ideal and its Irrefutable Detriments: In Conversation with Brontë and Bodichon 

“The extent to which the novel exemplifies and personifies certain legal models versus that of the reality for women poses a significant challenge when evaluating just what the law was supposed to achieve. Brontë’s novel allows us to work through those legal restraints on a woman’s individuality in a fictional setting and, accompanied by Bodichon’s remarks, forces us to grapple with those unrealistic expectations of love, protection, and marriage in a world where women are unseen in the eyes of the law.”

“The Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 might have been present or in the works during Brontë’s time, but it was not in the 1820s where The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is set. Knowing this, we can begin to understand the drastic measures that Helen must take to remedy the wrongdoings against her, such as Mr. Huntington’s infidelity, but also keep in mind her lack of agency over her child. Brontë, through a fictional narrative, can look back to a time without such reforms and options for women to stress the importance of society in progress further.” 

“While the laws may hold up one perfect and idealistic rendition of marriage and all the subsequent circumstances that follow, public sentiments began to ponder how and why their everyday problems were not reflected in the law.”

“Brontë’s novel, coupled with non-fictional works of later reform activists like Bodichon and Cobbe, expertly uncovers the ensnarement women are subjected to via the role of marriage and child custody in the legal system while illuminating the necessity for hypothetical, unattainable ideals to make way for women.”

  • This past project makes the most sense to me in considering the ways in which the other areas of Victorian law and literature can expand out of just one novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë, and one non-fiction prose, Barbra Leigh Smith Bodichon’s piece “A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women: Together with a Few Observations Thereon
  • The idea that my essay contends with is how a novel was able to allow society to embody this woman’s life which follows the correct course that the law affords women – get married and have children. Yet, through the course of the novel we can witness the abuse, verbal and physical, the economic confines and that idealistic rendition of marriage that the law of this era recognized is not in line with the realities women may face.
  • Where I would want to expand upon is looking into this period that became an era of social change through the law and what other sources of literature, case law, legislation, etc. brought it about. What were the reactions to Brontë’s novel and what were the leaders of this discourse saying about those literary embodiments of women outside of the law?

HIS 278: Women in the Ancient World

” Through inquiry into the traditional scope of the Laws, the only mention of women was denoted to their submission to patriarchal rule and limited rights under guardianship. By researching Roman women’s domestic duties and daily lives, including familial, religious, and other social relationships, I can draw out areas where they had agency and power over themselves and others around them.”

“While we do not have access to all of the laws, as mentioned previously, the selection we do have access to implies that the only mention of women was to set a precedent in the legal system that the positions they had were incumbent upon men’s decisions. For instance, under Table V. Inheritance and Guardianship, the law states, “…Women, even though they are of full age, because of their levity of mind shall be under guardianship…” (Lefkowitz & Fant,174).”