| England has historically conceived of chastity in two ways: (1) virginity prior to marriage followed by continence---i.e., self-restraint from sexual intercourse---within marriage; and (2) simplicity of clothing and ornamentation. This dissertation, Fashioning Chastity: British Marriage Plots and the Tailing of Desire, 1789 and 1928, focuses on a time when these two definitions coexisted. British marriage plots typically concentrate on two female characters: one who overvalues fashion and engages in pre-marital sexual activity (only to make a poor marriage or become a fallen woman) and another who favors conservative dress and guards her chaste reputation (for which she is rewarded with an affectionate marriage). While the fallen women's scandalous sexuality attracts critical attention, the marriage plot's heroines---perhaps because they appear to reify orthodoxy---tend to generate less analytical attention. This dissertation examines the latter group: the overlooked, chaste protagonists. By unpacking sartorial motifs in Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796), George Eliot's Adam Bede (1859), Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure (1895), and Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928), I illustrate how these authors use clothing's symbolic relation to contemporary issues to complicate the appearance feminine, chaste sexuality.;Ultimately, this dissertation draws upon and contributes to feminist and sexuality studies by helping us to better understand the complexity of female chastity throughout the long nineteenth century. While Enlightenment thinking led contemporary religious, marital, and sartorial discourses to back away from defining husbands as the undisputed rulers of their households, the Marriage Act of 1753 solidified the importance of female virginity, as verbal spousehoods were no longer legally binding. Concurrently, republican and capitalist belief systems deified the pursuit of happiness in marriage and promoted the interests of the rising middle-class, emphasizing women as the emotional and moral center of the home. In novels, then, the ascetically dressed virgin became idealized as the perfect emotional and economic partner for the modern, capitalist, upwardly-mobile man. This dissertation, though, illustrates how these sartorially and sexually chaste characters are not orthodox pawns that promote patriarchy but women whose chastity provides them with an unusual degree of autonomy when securing a marriage. |
