Second Time's the Charm: Remarriage and Reform in the Nineteenth-Century Novel

Abstract

Second marriage is an important and overlooked variation on the marriage plot of the nineteenth-century British novel. By situating remarriage within the historical context of law reform and the literary context of genre—always in dynamic interaction—this thesis argues that remarriage served as a focal point for the anxieties and concerns caused by the rapid pace of social and novelistic change in the nineteenth century. The genres depicting second marriage examined include the late Gothicism of Charlotte and Anne Brontë, who consider remarriage in the period prior to the seminal 1857 Matrimonial Causes Act; the sensation fiction of Mary Elizabeth Braddon and Ellen Wood, which developed in response to the passing of the Act; and the realism of Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot, which broadens the scope of remarriage to consider its relation to wider social issues including the impact of evolutionary theory and the vocation of women. This thesis argues that the notion of ‘reform’ underlies both marriage law and literary genre in the mid-nineteenth century, and that second marriage brings these together to formulate new ideas about progress, challenging our understanding of the canonical marriage plot and expanding it to include the complexity and diversity of remarriage.