Greed, Generosity, and Other Problems with Unmarried Women’s Property

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 3 focuses on the property problems of four unmarried female characters. Alongside Anthony Trollope’s general sympathy for women’s legal position, his acknowledgment of their financial capabilities, and his unusual tendency to depict wealthy female characters, these novels’ unusually punitive plotlines suggest the threat that single women’s independent economic actions might pose to established family structures and financial traditions. Whether these women are condemned as “blood-sucking harpies” for being “generous as the sun,” their greed and generosity present equal dangers to these novels’ social worlds because they obstruct customary forms of property transmission. By challenging principles of inheritance and heterosexual exchange, injuring the very families they claim to help, and creating unacceptable burdens for their male kin, these characters underscore contemporary fears and fantasies about the intrafamilial stakes of women’s financial choices and also showcase the contested roles of female custodians and creditors that became salient during a time of increased agitation for married women’s property rights.