Wedlock and fetters: Marriage, antislavery and abolition in eighteenth century British literature, 1759--1808

With Mary Astell's pre-Hardwicke and race-less view of marriage in Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1700) as its backdrop, this dissertation examines how the importance of marriage in Britain changes radically when race is considered---when one examines the black as well as white people caught within the oppressive mechanics of this contractual relationship. But more to the point, 'Wedlock and Fetters: Marriage, Antislavery and Abolition in Eighteenth-Century British Literature, 1759--1808' argues that enslaved black West Indian bodies make significant interventions into marriage plots by foregrounding issues of entrapment, indissolubility, oppression, exploitation, death---issues that pertain equally to slavery and marriage---in ways that make antislavery concerns and rhetoric more visible and palatable to British theatrical audiences and readers. For although Astell did not adequately consider the overlap between the slave and marriage institutions, I argue that British writers make such connections with both frequency and forcefulness once Hardwicke's Marriage Act becomes law. After 1754, Britons begin to take marriage more seriously, and their new attitude towards it runs parallel with the serious moral attention that some British writers devote to antislavery. While Astell's Reflections makes a compelling but race-less case for viewing marriage as a form of enslavement, I assert that the enslaved West Indians who appear in mid-to-late eighteenth-century dramas and novels where marriage is the focus are sometimes compelling illustrations of the times that British writers make significant antislavery claims and, on occasion, champion the freedom of black slaves in Britain and the British colonies. Thus, 'Wedlock and Fetters' examines the important contributions that West Indian texts like Adeline Mowbray, The Woman of Colour, The New Cosmetic, Irishman in London, or the Happy African and High Life Below Stairs make to the antislavery effort. It offers a critical new look at how the West Indian presence in British literature influenced major and minor British writers, enabling us to see them all as part of a literary antislavery agenda.