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The Matrimonial Theme of Defoe's Roxana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Spiro Peterson
Spiro Peterson*
Affiliation:
Miami University, Oxford, Ohio
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Extract

Defoe's The Fortunate Mistress (1724) has always had less popular appeal than Moll Flanders. To what extent this unpopularity is the result of the complexities in its theme cannot easily be determined. In a significant comment on this theme Roxana declares: “The opposite Circumstances of a Wife and Whore, are such, and so many, and I have since seen the Difference with such Eyes, as I could dwell upon the Subject a great-while, but my Business is History.” In a series of interrelated episodes the history itself presents sharply contrasted matrimonial circumstances. Both the character of Defoe's realism and his social vision are illuminated by an investigation of the pertinent backgrounds. In his last great novel he explored a subject increasingly important to a society middle-class in its moral and literary values. He drew materials for the dramatization of this matrimonial theme from his varied careers as journalist, moralist, and novelist.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 166 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

1 The Fortunate Mistress, Shakespeare Head Press Ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell [1927]), i, 154. Subsequent references to this ed. of The Fortunate Mistress, Moll Flanders, and Colonel Jack appear in parentheses as part of the text.

2 See A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal, printed with The Fortunate Mistress, ii, 242, 243.

3 (London, 1727), p. v. The resemblance of the Treatise to the Review in respect to the scandals is a major aspect of this study. Cf., e.g., the sodomy cited in Treatise, p. 12, and Defoe's Review, ed. Arthur Wellesley Secord (New York: Facsimile Text Soc, 1938), iv (27 Nov. 1707), 495b–496b.

4 Occasionally, and especially in Roxana's first relation, some satire is directed to the society in which she sojourns. Such resemblances to the picaresque narrative appear to be superficial. For the opposite view see Theodore M. Hatfield, “Some German Picaras of the Eighteenth Century,” JEGP, xxxi (1932), 511.

5 A lively feminist tradition, nurtured in late 17th-century tracts, was soon appropriated by formal fiction. See the discussions by A. P. Upham, “English Femmes Savantes at the End of the Seventeenth Century,” JEGP, xii (1913), 262–276; Rae Blanchard, “Richard Steele and the Status of Women,” SP, xxvi (1929), 325–355. Feminism and narrative were also brought together in secret histories, as Gwendolyn B. Needham has shown in “Mrs. Manley: An Eighteenth-Century Wife of Bath,” HLQ, xiv (1951), 262–277.

6 i, 4–8. Defoe included a section “Of Fools” in An Essay upon Projects (1697). With the passage on Fools in Mist's Journal, 29 Sept. 1718 (William Lee, Daniel Defoe: His Life, and Recently Discovered Writings [London, 1869], ii, 73) cf. Moll Flanders, i, 50–51.

7 See The Proverbs, 1:7, 22; 8:5; 10:21; 11:16; 12:23; 13:16; 14:24; and 18:2.

8 A True Collection of the Writings of the True Born English-man (London, 1703), pp. 103–104; A Second Volume of the Writings of the Author of the True-Born Englishman (London, 1705), p. 114.

9 iv (4 Oct. 1707), 404a–404b. See William Lytton Payne, Mr. Review (New York, 1947), p. 136 (notes 63 and 102), and The Best of the Review: An Anthology, ed. William Lytton Payne (New York, 1951), pp. 230–231.

10 Frequent references to the unfortunate state of the “Old Maid” appear in Review, i (10 Feb. 1705), 407b–408a, and The Little Review, ii (8 June 1705), 7b–8a; Mist's Journal, 4 April and 29 Aug. 1719, in Lee, ii, 115–117, 143–144, and Applebee's Journal, 6 and 13 April 1723, in Lee, iii, 125–131. See also Moll Flanders, i, 76.

11 The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe (Oxford, 1841), xvii, 32–33.

12 Cf. The Proverbs, 1:7, 18:2 and note Review, viii (31 March 1711), 11a: “… this Age is Famous for Solomon's Fools, that hate Instruction, that is, hate Information; and would all be thought Masters of every Scheme, and to know the Reason and History of every Action they read of.”

13 Review, vi (21 June 1709), 135a–135b. Steele had denned his Pretty Fellow in The Tatler, No. 21, for 28 May 1709, as an imitation gentleman. In No. 27 (11 June 1709) the Pretty Fellow is excluded from the class of the rake. See The Tatler, ed. George A. Aitken (London, 1899), i, 176, 225, 198–199.

14 Earlier Defoe had alluded to her one benefit from the Fool : “for I had now five Children by him: the only Work (perhaps) that Fools are good for” (i, 7). In the Review, iii (2 March 1706), 105b–106a, he expressed the opinion that even idle persons are “necessary Assistants to the Publick Good, as they Encrease the World, and may leave more useful People behind them.”

15 In Review, i, Supp. (Dec. 1704), 14[i.e., 11]b–13a a correspondent's story is related of a friend who had abandoned a vicious wife for 8 or 9 years and then remarried. The first wife returned and drove him and the second wife away. The Society blamed him because he had not made sure that the first wife was dead. See also Treatise (pp. 178–179) for an account of the Baronet who pretended he had died at Paris and even sent “a subtle, managing Fellow” to give his wife an account of his death and funeral. When the lady was about to remarry, the Baronet appeared and stopped the marriage.

16 Even if separation a mensa et thoro were granted by the ecclesiastical court, remarriage was not permitted.—Synodalia. A Collection of Articles of Religion, Canons, and Proceedings of Convocations in the Province of Canterbury, from the Year 1547 to the Year 1717, ed. Edward Cardwell (Oxford, 1842), i, 307–308; H[enry] C[onset], The Practice of the Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Courts, 3rd ed. (London, 1708), p. 279. See also the fine study by Gellert Spencer Alleman, Matrimonial Law and the Materials of Restoration Comedy (Wallingford, Pa., 1942), p. 107. The significance of matrimonial law in Defoe's novels was first generally suggested in Ernest A. Baker's “Defoe as Sociological Novelist,” Academy, lxx (26 May 1906), 502–503.

17 For an early use of the phrase “a Widower Bewitch'd” see Review, ii (24 April 1705), 87a.

18 John Godolphin, Reportorium Canonicum [1678], p. 494, cited by Alleman, Matrimonial Law and the Materials of Restoration Comedy, pp. 131–132.

19 Baron and Feme. A Treatise of the Common Law concerning Husbands and Wives, 2nd ed. (London, 1719), p. 384. Hereafter this work will be cited as Baron and Feme. See also Conset, The Practice of the Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Courts, pp. 253–254; [Thomas Salmon], A Critical Essay Concerning Marriage (London, 1724), pp. 101, 114–115. “Wilful desertion” is discussed in George E. Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions (London, 1904), ii, 77–80.

20 John Macqueen, The Practice of Parliament upon Bills of Divorce, with a Selection of Leading Cases (London, 1842), p. 474.

21 The Works of John Milton (New York, 1931), iv, 215. Defoe's attitude toward radical Protestant thought concerning divorce may be judged from his harsh stricture on the polygamous “Widower Bewitch'd” who sought a precedent in Calvin's grant of divorce, with right of re-marriage, to the Protestant Caracciolo from his Catholic wife (Review, ii, 24 April 1705, 87b). See the Consistory's epistle, 1 May 1599, in Joannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, ed. William Baum, Edward Cunitz, Edward Reuss (Corpus Reformatorum xlv, Brunswick, 1877), xvii, 509–511, and Georgia Harkness, John Calvin the Man and His Ethics (New York, 1931), p. 151.

22 Applebee's Journal, 16 Jan. 1725, in Lee, iii, 355–356. The same argument appears in Applebee's Journal, 24 April 1725, in Lee, iii, 379. A similar harsh treatment of Milton's views on divorce is to be found in Treatise, p. 118.

23 Cf. Review, v (22 July 1708), 197a; v (24 July 1708), 203b; and Treatise, p. 123.

24 Defoe's firm views concerning the moral guidance of the servant by the family head are given in Part ii of The Family Instructor (1715), in The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe, xv, and Letter i of The Great Law of Subordination.

25 Symbolism recurs later in the narrative as Roxana expresses remorse during the storm (i, 145). Another improper wife-husband-servant relationship is described in the manner of the Scandalous Society of the Review. The inn-people jestingly told Amy of a poor girl who revealed to her mistress, “in the Terror of a Storm,” that she had lain with her Master (i, 150). See Defoe's statements regarding the place of maids in Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725), p. 17 (The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe, xix) and the allusion to lewd maids' confessing their sins to their mistresses, in Applebee's Journal, 16 May 1724 (Lee, iii, 264).

26 Cf. Review, i, Supp. (Dec. 1704), 12b, and Applebee's Journal, 16 Jan. 1725, in Lee, iii, 355.

27 Page 65 (italics added). See also p. 174.

28 ii (24 April 1705), 87b.

29 See also pp. 39, 43.

30 ii (18 July 1705), 61[i.e., 51]a.

31 The new concept of divorce by judicial act of Parliament had been applied to three commoners before the year 1724. Even as Defoe wrote The Fortunate Mistress, two cases involving gentlemen were being decided. See The Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810–28), vii, 730; ix, 507, 1005; The Statutes at Large, 1714–1729 (London, 1763), v, s.v. “Private Acts,” 11 Geo. 1:1 and 11 Geo. 1:41.

32 John Cordy Jeaffresson, Brides and Bridals (London, 1873), i, 54.

33 Baron and Feme, p. 84. For a summary of the common law consult Chapter xi, “Of Dower.”

34 Baron and Feme, p. 124.

35 Baron and Feme, p. 86; Howard, A History of Matrimonial Institutions, ii, 93.

36 See Alice Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1919), pp. 35–41. Defoe frequently told stories of women financiers in South Sea speculation, such as Applebee's Journal, 10 Sept. 1720, in Lee, ii, 274–277; Mist's Journal, 28 Jan. 1721, in Lee, ii, 327–330; Applebee's Journal, 4 and 25 March, 27 May 1721, in Lee, ii, 345–347, 353–356, 382–383.

37 iv (27 Dec. 1707), 548b. The analogy is repeated in iv (30 Dec. 1707), 551a and iv (6 Jan. 1708), 564a.

38 i (5 Sept. 1704), 227b.

39 i (19 Sept. 1704), 243a–243b.

40 An early reference to Deuteronomy 15:17 appears in Review, viii (23 Aug. 1711), 263a.

41 Defoe's use of a late 17th-century scandal revealed at the trial of Mrs. Mary Butler is cogently argued in John Robert Moore's Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies (Humanities Series, Indiana Univ., 1939), pp. 44–49.

42 Needham, “Mrs. Manley: An Eighteenth-Century Wife of Bath,” pp. 271–277.

43 The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe, xv, 332. See also xvi, 47–48.

44 Defoe's advanced views on the woman's economic position are discussed in Robert P. Utter and Gwendolyn B. Needham, Pamela's Daughters (New York, 1936), p. 25.

45 The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Poe, xvii, 216–220. The satirists were prone to complain against the idleness of upper-middle-class women. The feminist Mary Astell raised this issue in her most important work, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694), p. 145. See Karl D. Bulbring, “Defoe and Mary Astell,” Academy, xxxix (14 March 1891), 259, and Florence M. Smith, Mary Astell (New York, 1916), pp. 70–71. Mary Astell may also have contributed to Roxana's feminist argument for liberty of the woman. See her Reflections upon Marriage, 3rd ed. (London, 1706), pp. ii, v, x, xxii.

46 Paradise Lost iv.295–299, ed. Merritt Y. Hughes (New York, 1935). In the Treatise (p. 2) Defoe quoted ll. 289–320, which include the important passage on subjection, 308–311. In Review, iv (15 Nov. 1707), 474b, he remarked: “if you will believe Mr. Milton, [Adam and Eve] had the Perfection of Conjugal Love towards one another—But as soon as ever they sinn'd, they fell out.”

47 Review, i (30 Dec. 1704), 360a.

48 Review, i (3 Feb. 1705), 399b. See also Review, i [ix] (19 Feb. 1713), 120a.

49 Review, i, Supp. (Dec. 1704), 25b–26a. See also Review, i (27 Jan. 1705), 392a, and cf. Moll Flanders, i, 67, 71, 73, 74, 76.

50 Proprietary rights of married women are discussed in Sir William Holdsworth, A History of English Law (London, 1938), v, 310–315; vi, 644–648; xii, 275–276, 324–326.

51 Baron and Feme, p. 7.

52 Baron and Feme, pp. 60–62. See also pp. 53, 55, 73, 74.

53 Baron and Feme, p. 125.

54 Cf. Moll Flanders, i, 65, and Treatise, p. 129.

55 Review, iii (20 Aug. 1706), 399b; viii (1712), Preface, [va–vb]; (20 Dec. 1711), 465 [i.e. 466]a; i [ix] (7 May 1713), 184b.

56 The Novels and Miscellaneous Works of Daniel De Foe, xvii, 220.

57 Holland lagged behind England in respect to the removal of women from the trades. Similar remarks by Sir Josiah Child, James Howell, and William Wycherley are quoted in Clark, Working Life of Women in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 35–38.

58 A remarkable coincidence exists between this scene and an event in Defoe's life. By the will of Samuel Tuffley, the brother of Mrs. Defoe, a trust was established in 1714 and opened in 1725. One of the terms specified that the trust was “for and to her disposing and appointment absolutely and independently of her said husband.” See George A. Aitken, “Defoe's Wife,” Contemporary Review, lvii (1890), 234, and James Sutherland, Defoe (London, 1950), p. 256.

59 i [ix] (19 Feb. 1713), 120a.