Sample introduction from Aestheticism and the Marriage Market in Victorian Popular Fiction: The Art of Female Beauty (original) (raw)
A notorious characteristic of English society is the universal marketing of our unmarried women ; a marketing peculiar to ourselves in Europe, and only rivalled by the slave merchants of the East. We are a match-making nation. 1 Th e 'universal marketing' of 'unmarried women' referred to by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1836 in his critical refl ection on English culture and society recognizes the economic implications of what would become known as the Victorian marriage market. Th e idea of women being for sale via transactional marriage arrangements is not new in feminist critical studies and has been frequently considered in the context of the marriage plot. 2 Th e valuing of a marriageable woman according to her beauty dates back for centuries, and was also tied to her social class, economic fortune, virginity and virtue , and accomplishments . Such qualities made her an object of desire in a marriage system that imitated the conditions of market sales. Th is book began as an attempt to understand the Victorian marriage market , a cultural cliché so widespread in Victorian fi ction that it appears to be taken for granted in literary and cultural history. My understanding of the Victorian marriage market is two-pronged. At the outset, it is a metaphor for the way in which families sought to arrange fi nancially and socially advantageous marital unions between their sons and daughters in order to preserve 'the two interrelated factors of social and economic interest, which traditionally determined marriage choice' . 3 Relatedly, the marriage market also refers to publicly organized events intended to bring eligible men and women together, or as Patricia Jalland notes: 'elaborate social conventions were created to restrict and regulate young love among the upper-middle and upper class. Th e London season , 'coming out' country house parties and balls -all operated to ensure that young people only met others of desirable social background' . 4 Th e London season in particular served as a more literal kind of marriage market because a young woman's presence at various social engagements during this season announced her candidature for marriage, with the result that many 784 Aestheticism.indd 1 784 Aestheticism.indd
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