Sensitive Feminism vs. Conventional Sympathy: Richardson and Fielding on Women

Abstract

Samuel Richardson has long been recognized as a writer sympathetic to women -expressing their feelings and point of view, defending their rights in a maledominated society. He not only defended women in a general way, but systematically refuted the charges commonly made against them, such as that intellectual women show off and domineer-sometimes by direct argument, sometimes by attributing anti-feminist opinions to fools or villains. Genuinely convinced that women's minds were as worthy of development as men's, Richardson praised qualities that most of his contemporaries could not see or did not value in women. Unique in his time, he represented women as autonomous beings rather than appendages to fathers, brothers, lovers, or husbands. His defense of women against exploitation appears indirectly in his penetrating exposure of male chauvinism, wherein he dissected not only obviously criminal oppression of women, but the oppression which was conventionally accepted in his society. His views began to emerge as he modified traditional romance in Pamela (though in Part I Pamela is primarily a sex object), find full expression in Clarissa, and remain conspicuous even in the more conventional Sir Charles Grandison. Richardson's radicalism can be most fully appreciated if we contrast him with Henry Fielding, whose loving presentation of romantic heroines is conditioned by the anti-feminist prejudices of the time. Both writers, reflecting the increasingly middle-class sensibility of the eighteenth century, emphasized the sacredness of marriage and insisted that it be based upon love and mutual respect. Reacting against Restoration licentiousness, they condemned men who seduced or brutally exploited women and they repudiated the cruder reductions of women to sexual objects; Fielding explicitly condemned those who regarded a beautiful woman as prey or meat. They opposed the libertine view that men lose by marriage and discountenanced the double standard, though Fielding was not very convincing on this point. They insisted that men should treat all women with consideration, and their wives with esteem. They found fortitude, good sense, and generosity in women as well as men and emphasized the importance of mental qualities over mere physical beauty. On the other hand, both men accepted some of the limitations placed upon women by bourgeois marriage and family structure. They over-emphasized women's chastity as a priceless possession which must be guarded at all costs