One Great Family: Domestic Relationships in Samuel Richardson's Novels. Simone Höhn
is denied at home” (75). In marked contrast to his promises, one of their earliest quarrels is brought on when he grudges her the time she spends writing to Anna – an issue which comes up repeatedly (420).
After Clarissa’s death, Anna describes her usual distribution of her private time before the conflict with her family. Significantly, the division she makes is based on a “self-set lesson” and includes considerations of duty as well as of pleasure (1470). Her short night – six hours of sleep only, like Lovelace (74) –, Anna explains, is for her a cordial rather than a mortification: “She thought herself not so well, and so clear in her intellects (so much alive, she used to say) if she exceeded this proportion” (1470).1 Most of her hours are allotted to social engagements in the broadest sense (including household management and visits to the poor), yet the first three are for “closet-duties” and letter writing. Despite the apparent strictness of Clarissa’s self-imposed system, she is always ready to “borrow, as she called it, from other distributions” (1470) in order to gratify her family or visitors. Her – or Anna’s – terminology highlights the way in which such accommodation constitutes private time: her hours are Clarissa’s to distribute and manage, just as she manages the money from which she donates alms. Her daily schedule is in accordance with contemporary conduct books for women (cf. KukorellyKukorelly Leverington, Elizabeth, “Domesticating the Hero” 157), yet the emphasis is consistently on “choice”. Indeed, Clarissa emphasises that she does not regard her strict time-keeping as a duty, “but when it is more pleasant to me to keep such an account than to let it alone; why may I not proceed in my supererogatories?” (1472). This is one of the ways in which the system of duty is presented as one which enables good women: Clarissa expresses her individuality through acting on the best rules known to her. Like Richardson’s other heroines, she “defines herself through the ability to make moral and rational choices, and this is true even when the power of acting on such choice is obstructed” (LatimerLatimer, Bonnie, Making Gender 71).
Like modern ‘positive thinking’ and self-improvement, this kind of (female) agency is double-edged: it has the potential to empower the individual, but may also deflect attention away from larger social problems by focusing on individual responsibility. Incidentally, if strict time-keeping is not, as Clarissa admits, a duty, the formulation calls attention to the fact that a considerable part of life is precisely that. However, duty can also enable resistance. Thus, Pamela’s steadfast rejection of her master’s advances is justified by the duty of chastity. Her self-defence – which includes her spreading knowledge of his behaviour to parents and potential helpers as well as her using ‘impertinent’ language – requires her to be actively disobedient. AllestreeAllestree, Richard’s idea of “passive obedience” (2[90]; Sunday XIV) – that is, refusing to act on unjust commands, but without taking precautions to evade punishment – is here out of the question. If the consequence of obedience to Mr. B. is the sin of debauchery, then the consequence of disobedience without self-defence is her rape. Yet Pamela verbally turns the tables on Mr. B. When he asks, after having kissed her in the summer house, what harm he has done to her, she answers: “You have taught me to forget myself, and what belongs to me, and have lessen’d the Distance that Fortune has made between us, by demeaning yourself, to be so free to a poor Servant” (23). Pamela manages to rhetorically change his position (Mr. B. is now closer to her, having debased himself) and simultaneously to rebuke him for not living up to his status (which, ordered by Fortune, should be stable), even while blaming any impertinence she might commit on his “teaching”. According to AllestreeAllestree, Richard, teaching his inferiors morality is a crucial branch of a master’s duty (cf. 338; Sunday XV). Thus, when Pamela accuses Mr. B. of leading her astray (even if only to impertinence rather than lewdness), her words are a reminder of the duties he should fulfil. Moreover, she has changed the ground from a discussion of her own misbehaviour to his – she will not claim to behave perfectly herself, but the worse her actions are, the worse are his for tempting her to commit them (as we will see, after their marriage it is Mr. B. who employs a similar strategy).
Duty, then, can be perceived as the foundation of power of the person owing the duty. This is true to different extents in confrontations with people who do, or who do not, acknowledge the system of duty. Pamela’s main antagonist, Mr. B., may choose to live according to common practice rather than Christian morality when trying to seduce his servant, but this does not mean that he rejects Pamela’s standard entirely (cf. KayKay, Carol 163). Indeed, his conversion is brought about to a large extent through his recognition that Pamela’s virtue is genuine rather than affected. Richardson’s rival Henry Fielding indirectly testifies to the power of this standard in his parody: in order to depict his anti-Pamela, ShamelaFielding, Henry, as a hypocrite, he makes her not only cunning and designing, but unchaste (so much so, in fact, that she is finally “caught […] in bed with Williams”; 344). Deviation from Christian morality to rakish practice must be justified through the alleged insincerity of the desired woman.
Clarissa’s problem, in contrast, is that the system of duty does not clearly privilege her position over that of her parents. She and her family agree that a child should obey, and in general, Clarissa is “the most dutiful daughter anyone in her world has ever known” (ZwingerZwinger, Lynda 14). Yet now that their interests clash, they find that “no law interprets itself” (KayKay, Carol 163). Even if it is acknowledged that a daughter may passively resist some commands, and possibly voice criticism in some cases, the point at which this happens is subject to interpretation and contention. For AllestreeAllestree, Richard, such a point is almost literally unmentionable. In the case of wives – whose relation to a husband, as indicated above, is more equal than that of child to parent – he specifies that, if they are commanded “something, which though it be not unlawful, is yet very inconvenient and imprudent […] it will be no disobedience in her, but duty, calmly and mildly to shew him the inconveniences thereof” (324; Sunday XV). Although they must yield if they find their husband unpersuadable, duty not only justifies, but almost compels, some resistance; Pamela acts on this principle when she tries to persuade Mr. B. to let her nurse their son herself (cf. part II). However, Allestree gives no similar justification for exhortation to children, who must obey every command which “is either good, or not evil” (301; Sunday XIV). DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson is somewhat more alert to the possibility that a child may need to resist parents, although this admission is carefully placed in the midst of an exhortation to children to show reverence: “Respect is a natural restraint upon us […] even when we are obliged to reason and remonstrate against [parents’] conduct. Such is that earnest intercession of Jonathan to his father Saul, for the life of David his friend” (144; Sermon VI).2 Anna – whose friendship with Clarissa is compared by the latter to Jonathan’s – justifies her conflict with her mother by her duty as a friend (477).
DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson’s cited exception to the rule of obedience, however, is based on duty to others. When it comes to resistance as self-defence, he is even more reticent. He acknowledges only implicitly that unquestioning obedience may be relaxed, but not dispensed with, in the case of marriage. Significantly, he does so while discussing parental, rather than filial, duty (thus, once more, evading the question of children’s rights). Addressing parents’ authority in the question of marriage, he condemns not only violence, but also over-persuasion, reminding parents that a dutiful child may be led to not mention her justified, or at least involuntary, aversion to a proposed marriage partner: “But although they [parents who persuade] act with less appearance of violence, may be as guilty; and by insinuations and artful address prevail over fearful and modest minds, and obtain a consent, when they have not courage or assurance enough to resist or contend on such an occasion” (135; Sermon VII). He does not go so far as to say a child may speak out without the parents’ invitation, or even point-blank refuse to obey. However, by stating that the most dutiful children may be silent until urged by the parents to voice their feelings, he leaves room to assume that a respectful resistance is not condemnable.
Nevertheless, admitting that there are cases where parents should not insist on their authority does not automatically clarify how such a situation should be negotiated. All the Harlowes, including Clarissa, agree that she should obey those commands which are neither impossible nor immoral. However, as GouldnerGouldner, Alvin