Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain by Kristina Straub

Abstract

265 tradictory, that she chooses a term, ‘‘pornography,’’ coined in and overburdened with, as she acknowledges, nineteenth and twentieth-century associations . Nevertheless, since ‘‘sexual literature . . . encompassed a very wide range of styles,’’ she contends, we should ‘‘redefine both our understanding of the term . . . as well as our understanding of the nature of that pornographic material.’’ Apart from this discrepancy, Ms. Toulalan ’s interesting readings of passages and pictures, challenge feminist and psychoanalytic readings by underscoring humor and playfulness: ‘‘In this early modern literature the penis is not represented in the symbolic sense that psychoanalysis has suggested, as the phallus , rather it is imagined in its physical reality, and with a degree of playfulness and pleasure that subverts any interpretation of such humour as clearly misogynist .’’ Some evidence works against her, as she admits, because women did not write these works, nor were their responses to them sufficiently documented : ‘‘While erotic images of women may be intended for—and in this period , commissioned by—heterosexual men, this cannot preclude women’s enjoyment of them’’; and ‘‘[a]necdotal evidence , albeit from a slightly earlier period , suggests that women at this time did respond sexually to images’’; and finally ‘‘[a]lthough it is likely that the majority of readers were male, reflecting higher rates of literacy, . . . we should not ignore the probability of a female readership, however small or indirect.’’ Thus, we are left to surmise how women might have responded. Matthew Binney Eastern Washington University KRISTINA STRAUB. Domestic Affairs: Intimacy, Eroticism, and Violence between Servants and Masters in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009. Pp. ix ⫹ 223. $55. One of the strangest, and most strangely disregarded, aspects of eighteenth -century British life and literature for modern readers is the ubiquity of servants. Ms. Straub’s focus on this part of the eighteenth-century world—its why and its wherefore—is welcome and long overdue attention. Her study addresses a basic and profound question: what role did the relationship between servants and masters play in the development of the modern self? Her first two chapters introduce the ‘‘servant problem’’ as it was articulated by eighteenth-century writers of conduct literature and manuals. From the outset, Ms. Straub carefully restricts herself to an historian’s view of the relationship between masters and servants, and her methodological discipline is a great strength. During the century, a ‘‘type, almost a genre, of writing emerges that shows a high degree of consciousness, often anxiety, about the moral behavior of servants and how it affects domestic relations.’’ Servants are seen as children of the family for whose moral education the master and mistress are responsible. Yet, the literature also reveals anxieties about their geographic and status mobility . Are they or are they not members of the family? If they can pick up and relocate at will, perhaps they are not part of the family. Are they or are they not servants? If they can redefine themselves as highwaymen or prostitutes, maybe they are not servants. Anxieties are also evident regarding sexual con- 266 duct. Ms. Straub summarizes the cultural worry pondered by the instructional literature: ‘‘Servants are not supposed to have sex; servants are always having sex.’’ Male servants are generally regarded as active and disruptive sexual agents; female domestics ‘‘cause trouble in families even without active effort.’’ Ms. Straub’s methodology remains consistent in her consideration of the cultural representations of servants in nondidactic literature. Two of these chapters are focused on female servants, two on male. Although she does not discount the usefulness of Freudian analysis , queer theory, or other theoretical schools, she tries, for the most part, to recover the psychological and cultural world of the eighteenth century. Her effort pays off in stunningly fresh readings of, in particular, Pamela, Roxana, and Caleb Williams. Ms. Straub also highlights several sensational episodes regarding the status and behavior of servants. She reads Richardson’s Pamela in conjunction with the occasional literature generated by the Elizabeth Canning trial—a trial famously presided over and chronicled by Fielding, who also, of course, famously parodied Richardson’s tale of a wronged servant girl. Ms. Straub’s reading of Roxana is posited against an horrific tale of servant abuse enacted...