Breeching Boys: Milksops, Men’s Clubs and the Modelling of Masculinity in Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Abstract

In Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall Anne Brontë calls into question the conventional rearing of boys in the middle and upper classes in Victorian England. She exposes how many fathers fail to instil the prerequisite values of Victorian manliness in their sons. Instead of producing chivalric young gentleman, they create future tyrants, who abuse their masculine privilege and primogeniture. These fathers often laud their sons’ unmanly behaviour towards women and girls, as a means of separating their sons from ‘petticoat government’. Anne Brontë also offers an alternative model of fatherhood through Gilbert Markham whose paternal affection for young Arthur eventually wins over Helen Huntingdon’s affections.