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The Late-Victorian Marriage Question: A Collection of Key New Woman Texts

Edited by Ann Heilmann

Published: 1998
DOI: 10.4324/9780415179430
Set ISBN: 9780415179430

Set Contents

The New Woman and Female Independence

Edited by
Ann Heilmann

This volume places the controversy on marriage and motherhood in the context of the New Woman debate. While the three debates were linked, each had its own dynamic and saw shifting alliances and antagonisms. Most interestingly perhaps, both female conservatives and male progressives (who were not necessarily feminist in outlook, and were often distinctly hostile to feminism) were influenced by feminist thought, and drew on New Woman discourses to argue their own causes. All three camps deployed eugenicist arguments: traditionalist women and progressive men to postulate the duty of female self-sacrifice in marriage and motherhood, feminists to advocate women’s right to ‘purify’ domestic and political life.

Volume Contents

Front Matter
The New Woman and Female Independence By Ann Heilmann
The Debate Between Feminists, Traditionalists and Anti-Feminists
- Upholding the Ideals of Marriage
  - 'The Judicial Shock to Marriage', Nineteenth Century, vol. 29 (1891), pp. 691-700 By Eliza Lynn Linton
  - The Modern Marriage Market (London: Hutchinson, 1898) By Marie Corelli; Lady Mary Jeune; Flora Annie Steel; Susan Harris
    - I By Marie Corelli
    - II By Lady Mary Jeune
    - III By Flora Annie Steel
    - IV By Susan Harris
- Progressive Views by Men
  - 'The Future of Marriage', Fortnightly Review, vol. 51 ns (1892), pp.258-71 By Wordsworth Donisthorpe
  - 'Marriage: A Retrospect', 'Marriage: A Forecast', and 'The Intermediate Sex', in Love’s Coming-of-Age (London: Methuen & Co. [1914]; first published 1896), pp. 72-134 By Edward Carpenter
- Opposing Divorce
  - 'For Better for Worse', Contemporary Review, vol. 51 (1887), pp. 570-76 By Dinah M. Mulock, afterwards Craik
  - 'The Future of Marriage: A Reply', Fortnightly Review, vol. 51 ns (1892), pp.272-82 By Susan H. Malmesbury
  - 'The Decline of Divorce', 'Why we Should Oppose Divorce' (first published 1890), and 'The Indissolubility of Marriage' (first published 1890), in Marriage Questions in Modern Fiction, and Other Essays on Kindred Subjects (London: Lane, the Bodley Head, 1897) pp. 129-67, 193-223, and 225-30 By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman
    - The Decline of Divorce By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman
    - Why We should Oppose Divorce By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman
    - The Indissolubility of Marriage By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman
- The Feminist Critique of Marriage and Suggestions for Change
  - The Woman Question (London: Swan Sonnerschein, 1886) By Edward Aveling; Eleanor Marx Aveling
  - 'Prospects of Marriage for Women', Nineteenth Century, vol. 31 (1892), pp. 537-52 By Clara E. Collet
  - A Noviciate for Marriage [Haslemere, 1894] By Edith [Lees] Ellis
  - 'Marriage à La Mode', Humanitarian, vol. 8 (1896), pp. 194-8 By Olga Sann
  - 'Why Women are Ceasing to Marry', Humanitarian, vol. 14 (1899), pp. 391-6 By Ella Hepworth Dixon
- The Debate on Motherhood: Degradation or Woman’s Highest Natural Function?
  - 'The Dignity of Love', Humanitarian, vol. 8 (1896), pp.435-9 By Dr Arabella Kenealy
  - 'The Degradation of Woman', Humanitarian, vol. 9 (1896), pp. 250-57 By St George Mivart
  - 'Is it Degradation? a Reply to Professor Mivart', Humanitarian, vol. 9 (1896), pp.340-48 By Grant Allen
  - 'Woman and Motherhood' Humanitarian, vol. 9 (1896), pp. 358-67 By Christina Sinclair Bremner
  - 'It is Degradation: a Brief Re-Statement' Humanitarian, vol. 9 (1896), pp. 417-19 By St George Mivart
  - 'Nature’s Nuns: A Reply to Grant Allen', Humanitarian, vol. 9 (1896), pp. 420-26 By Coralie Glyn
The New Woman
- The New Woman Versus the Old Woman
  - 'The New Aspect of the Woman Question', North American Review, vol. 158 (1894), pp. 270-76 By Sarah Grand
  - 'The New Woman', North American Review, vol. 158 (1894), pp. 610-19 By Louise de la Ramee
  - 'The New Woman and the Old', Lady’s Realm (1898), pp. 466-70 By Sarah Grand
  - 'The New Woman and the Old: A Reply to Sarah Grand', Lady’s Realm (1898), pp. 600-604 By Lady Mary Jeune
- Celebrating the New Woman
  - 'The “Old” Woman and the “New”', Young Woman, vol. 3 (1895), pp. 202-204, 273-6 By Hulda Friederichs
  - 'Is the New Woman a Myth?', Humanitarian, vol. 8 (1896), pp. 339-50 By Mrs Morgan-Dockrell
  - 'Religio Feminæ: A Foreword', in Marriage Questions in Modern Fiction, and Other Essays on Kindred Subjects (London: Lane, the Bodley Head, 1897), pp. ix-xvi By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman
  - 'The “New Woman” in her Relation to the “New Man”', Westminster Review, vol. 147 (1897), pp. 335-7 By Emma Churchman Hewitt
  - 'What is the Rôle of the “New Woman?”', Westminster Review, vol. 150 (1898), pp. 576-87 By Nat Arling
  - 'Character Note: The New Woman', Cornhill Magazine, vol. 23 ns (1894), pp. 365-8 By H. S. Scott; E. B. Hall
- Decrying the New Woman
  - 'Misoneogyny', Punch, vol. 109 (20 June 1895), p. 35, p. 35
  - 'Foibles of the New Woman', Forum (1896), pp. 186-92 By Ella W. Winston
- The New Woman and Marriage
  - 'The Man of the Moment', North American Review (1894), pp. 620-27 By Sarah Grand
  - The Modern Man and Maid (London: Horace Marshall & Son, 1898) By Sarah Grand
  - 'At What Age Should Girls Marry?', Young Woman, vol. 7 (1898), pp. 161-5 By Sarah Grand
  - 'Does Marriage Hinder a Woman’s Self-Development?', Lady’s Realm, vol. 5 (1898), pp. 161-5 By Sarah Grand
- Feminist Ideas Go Mainstream: The Revolt of the Daughters
  - 'The Revolt of the Daughters', Nineteenth Century, vol. 35 (1894), pp. 23-31 By B. A. Crackanthorpe
  - 'The Revolt of the Daughters: A Last Word on “The Revolt”', Nineteenth Century, vol. 35 (1894), pp. 424-9 By B. A. Crackanthorpe
  - 'The Revolt of the Daughters: Daughters and Mothers', Nineteenth Century, vol. 35 (1894), pp. 430-36 By M. E. Haweis
  - 'A Reply from the Daughters', Nineteenth Century, vol. 35 (1894), pp. 437-42 By Kathleen Cuffe
  - 'A Reply from the Daughters', Nineteenth Century, vol. 35 (1894), pp. 443-50 By Alys W. Pearsall Smith
  - 'The Evolution of the Daughters', Contemporary Review, vol. 115 (1894), pp. 515-20 By Sarah M. Amos
  - 'The Revolt of the Daughters', Fortnightly Review, vol. 55 (1894), pp. 267-76 By Lady Mary Jeune
  - 'The Revolt of the Daughters. An Answer – by One of Them', Westminster Review, vol. 141 (1894), pp. 679-81 By Gertrude Hemery
  - 'The Naughty Daughters', Punch, vol. 106 (27 January 1894), p. 42, p. 42