Edith Wharton and the Fiction of Marital Unity

Abstract

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905) and her later novel The Glimpses of the Moon (1922) bear a striking resemblance to each other, and the relationship between the two novels sheds light on Wharton's oeuvre as a whole. 1 The House of Mirth and The Glimpses of the Moon measure Wharton's evolving imaginative attempt to salvage American marriage. When juxtaposed, the two novels call out to be explored with respect to the legal moment to which they so clearly speak. Employing similar scenarios, the novels evaluate competing claims within the legal definition of marriage--claims that were increasingly set at odds during Wharton's time. Placing the novels within their legal context not only clarifies the central problem each novel addresses but also illuminates the limitations of Wharton's novels, as well as their continued cultural relevance. Wharton's vision ultimately did not move beyond the legal framework that structured her analysis of marriage, and her preoccupation with the law's terms created an unresolved tension in her fiction. This tension is itself revealing, for it prefigures a broader social inability to resolve the contradictions inherent in marriage law since its inception. Situating The House of Mirth and The Glimpses of the Moon within the legal moment that shaped them also brings us closer to grasping the paradox that seems to govern Wharton's marriage novels. For while Wharton's novels consistently critique marriage, they simultaneously insist [End Page 947] upon its importance in social life. Once we understand the juridical tradition within which Wharton deliberately places her novels, we can better appreciate the social value she ascribes to marriage and her desire to rehabilitate the institution in America.