ChapterV An Apology for Patriarchy The most transient visitor ... could not fail to be aware ... that England is 1 under the rule of a patriarchy. Virginia Woolf had declared this as late as 1929. Years later Sylvia Plath in her characteristic way articulated her fear towards her father thus, For thirty years, poor and mute, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time - ... I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. ... I have always been scared of you, ... 2 The discussions so far have sufficiently revealed Jane Austen's ambivalent attitude towards patriarchs and the patriarchal society with its various ramifications. Her characterization of General Tilney, Sir Walter Elliot, Sir Thomas Bertram along with their successors Captain Tilney, Mr. Elliot and Tom respectively amongst others, further goes on to suggest that she did not have much expectations from patriarchy even in the future. Her last complete novel Persuasion liberates the heroine from the land-based patriarchal society for a new world. All her mature novels are highly critical in their evaluation of this system. The behaviour, manners and attitude of many a male guardian along with their heirs, and the effect that their 182 principles, ideals and beliefs have produced is quite unflattering - suggesting as ifthe author is being apologetic for patriarchy. After all, the novelist was well aware that one of the main criteria on which patriarchy has survived throughout the ages is by means of effective domination. Studies by many anthropologists and natural historians have pointed out that even before societies - as we know them today had started forming- both the genders were at par, enjoying equality in a manner that is unthinkable today. Though the roles played by both the genders were different even then, still that did not make one inferior to the other. But then something happened to distort this harmony and men came to occupy a superior position over women and, thus the latter became 'the second gender'. This was achieved by various means, of which suppression perhaps is foremost, which primarily ensured that men continue to enjoy the dominant position of power and control. Austen might not have been aware of the history per se, but surely she perceived the suppression of women around her, which fmds reflection in her narratives. A brief discussion of patriarchy at this point is essential, before understanding Austen's view of the system and its perpetrators. Patriarchy means male domination and the loss of space for women, according to feminist scholars. They further say that history today, as we know it, is a distortion of matriarchal values which have been cleverly 183 replaced by patriarchy - a culture that is inherently linked to capitalism and the destruction of nature. Patriarchy is a system of domination in which war always becomes the main principle of social organization, the formulation of economic policies and the striving for technology. So successful has patriarchy been in its domination that matriarchy with which the earliest societies had begun is marginalized, almost obliterated. The instances of extant matriarchal societies can literally be counted on the tip of our fingers. But at what point and exactly how did matriarchy become subsumed by patriarchy, is still a matter of controversy. Importantly, the male-dominated society is associated with the culture of violence and economic disparity. Simone de Beauvoir opined that the male's identification with nature is symbolized by his ability to hunt and kill, whereas, for women her identification with nature has been as a symbol of immanence which is connected with the natural life-giving process which perpetuates the species. However, in the history of mankind, superiority or authority belongs not with those that bring life but with those which can kill and has the power to take away life. Feminist researchers also contend that the social order in matriarchal societies is based on intelligent principles cultivated over thousands of years of human experience. It encourages well-balanced societies that practice reciprocal equality in which every individual irrespective of sex and age is 184 treated with respect. This theory is supported by the very nature of matriarchy which means 'centred around the mother' and the mother as the life giver and preserver cannot be violent, destructive or non-egalitarian. However, the same cannot be said about patriarchy, or the society centred around the father, which as opposed to matriarchy, cannot claim to be based on the ideals of a non-violent social order in which all living creatures are respected. Since force, subordination and suppression are the mechanisms by which patriarchy works, the party which has the upper hand is in control. Patriarchy is inextricably connected with the concept of power and authority vested in men, which they exercise over women through subordination and suppression. Such authority also presupposes that women are the property of men. The Western patriarchal society which often displayed misogynistic tendencies was able to bring about the subjugation of women to their will through both physical and psychological tactics. In ''A Room of One's Own" Woolf says, In fact, as Professor Trevelyan fints out, she [women] was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. Along with these physical means their upbringing instilled in their minds the idea that all men are superior to women. There may have been women like Austen's female protagonists who did not subscribe to the principle of male 185 superiority but they continued to be docile to men out of fear of the consequences if they went against them. Female thinkers and writers of the eighteenth century like Wollstonecraft and Austen (the latter in an implicit way) thought of challenging these conventions. Intelligent women- like Austen's heroines - were gradually learning to come out of their cloistered confines because somewhere deep down they had an invincible sense of their own authority and autonomy gained from their experiences but which they were then themselves unable to comprehend fully. Writers like Austen who could 'comprehend' and yet did not try to provoke patriarchy openly, however did speak of these things in her novels through the art of evasion and conceaJment. For Austen the one language at her disposal which she mastered was the language of double talk. In this she became adept, perhaps more than any other female writer in England or America. It is thus that she presented to the public in an acceptable manner even dangerous visions of women in a way which obscured but could not obliterate their most subversive impulses. This was not an act of challenge against patriarchy but a survival strategy born out of fear. So carefully has this evasion and conceaJment been done by Austen and other female writers that some critics believe that men authors are nowhere as elaborate as them. That Austen expressed her thoughts under the 186 legitimized cover of parodic strategies made her works ambiguous in nature and difficult to understand her exact meaning. Given the very patriarchal literary tradition, no doubt she and her counterparts had important things to hide and had tried to veil their criticism and managed to write within the bounds set by patriarchy. Feminist scholars like Patricia Meyer Spacks, Margaret Kirkham, Elaine Showalter, Carolyn Heilburn and Catherine Stimpson have tried to reach the truth behind the concealment in women writers and fmd meaning out of the seemingly empty spaces in their narratives. The relegation of women to the domestic sphere was the most effective tactic of patriarchy to exercise control over women. Following this patriarchal norm Austen limited her literary topics to the domestic confmes of three or four families belonging to the countryside. But even then she was able to effectively criticize patriarchy. It was through rebellious escapes from houses and institutions supported by it, from where women propelled by their claustrophobic rage ran away or eloped. They sought an escape from their deadened world into one of activity and freedom. When Maria Bertram seeks to go beyond the locked gates in her would-be husband's grand estate Sotherton, she too perhaps expresses the anxiety of women in such confmed environments. But such dangerous and rebellious feelings can never be tolerated within patriarchy and for her defiance she is punished. 187 All the houses and estates in Austen are conspicuous by their lack of details which symbolize the emptiness in the lives of the women who are destined to live within them. Further Austen portrays most of her protagonists as sub-consciously looking for an escape from their paternal houses which are always uncomfortable because they offer them no private space. This general discontent is voiced by Anne when she says, 'We live at home, quiet, confined and our feelings prey upon us. You [men] are forced on exertion You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, ... '(P, 219) [Italics mine] In Persuasion, Anne's father's house is defined not by any other feature but Sir Walter's numerous mirrors where she is faced with the monotonous ambience of her father's estate. Although mistress of her father's house Emma suffers from intellectual loneliness enclosed within locked doors and windows and blazing ftres. All the heroines consciously or unconsciously want to reach beyond their father's house to the world outside. Maria Bertram is ". . . prepared for matrimony by a hatred of home, restraint, and tranquility ... " (MP, 70). Fanny leaves Mansfield to occupy the smaller parsonage at Thornton Lacey and Emma after her father's demise will eventually move over to Donwell Abbey. Catherine too will occupy Henry's parsonage at Woodston away from the claustrophobic environment of her parental home and the confming Abbey of the monsterish General. Although women from their mothers' lives did perceive how debilitating 188 marriage can be- as does most of Austen's female protagonists as well as some of her secondary female characters - they still want husbands in order to escape from home. Besides, the subconscious fear of becoming like their mothers, fmancial dependence adds one more motive to flee the parental house. Therefore, in a patriarchal world women are shown as competing with one another for male protection. The public image of patriarchy was one of benevolence and protective guardianship of their womenfolk. But by presenting the cases of so many women in her novels whose conscious or sub-conscious impulse is to escape the confmes of paternal houses, Austen explodes the myth and exposes the ugly truth about patriarchy. Some of her novels portray more than one instance of elopement which are deliberately shown to be rash and foolish acts because Austen was aware that any endorsement of such acts would not be taken kindly by patriarchal society. Nevertheless, such instances speak for Austen's indictment of patriarchy which is very cleverly couched in subtlety and indirection. The author had realized that there is no possibility of escape from the patriarchal enclosure, which has betrayed nature through a culture that refuses equality to women. The irony is that women cannot escape these conventions and must adhere to them which ultimately denigrate them. Women were fated to inhabit the male-defined confmes, be it in matters of 189 conduct, speech, thought, way of dressing, etc., as their mothers and before them their mother's mother had been doing for centuries, which inevitably was bound to alter their vision of life and living. Tight-lacing, fasting, vinegar-drinking and other cosmetic or dietary excesses were encouraged. For women to be frail, sickly and ill, as it were became an ideal to be aspired for, an essential objective for their training in femininity. It formed a part of the physical regimen which made women ill and weak, that in tum was admired by the men, for the weaker they were the more complete their suppression will be. If anything firmness within patriarchy can only precipitate downfall as it does literally for Louisa Musgrove and figuratively for Mary Crawford. Women like Lousia are expected not to jump from the stiles (suggestive of masculine activity and energy) but to read love poetry quietly in the parlour with a suitor sensitive to her condition. Louisa's near fatal fall and illness reinforce Anne's belief that female assertion must be fatal and diminishing, just as Marianne Dashwood' s is shown to be. In Mansfield Park the distinction between a weak and timid Fanny and a healthy and outspoken Mary is most marked, based on which they are accorded different treatments within patriarchy. Mary's physical fitness is not seen as a sign of good health but as a masculine attribute. "I am very strong. Nothing ever fatigues me ... " (MP, 55), Mary frankly admits this supposedly unfeminine quality. Unlike Fanny, this "rather small, strongly 190 made" lady takes up riding out of sheer "inclination to learn to ride" (MP, 53). Mary's passion affects Fanny's already fragile health as she is deprived of the much-needed exercise, since Mary borrows her horse. Even Edmund points out, "She [Mary] rides only for pleasure, you [Fanny] for health ... " (MP, 56). As the narrative progresses, Mary is shown to be evil and monstrous, primarily because she is assertive, brutally outspoken and willful in her way of living - qualities abhorred by her society in a woman. Mary and Fanny can be equally selfish, yet the difference between them is that the latter keeps her selfish feelings to herself and does not allow this impulse to determine her outward actions. Thus, outwardly she is an angel for patriarchy. Mary is the reverse. In this story Fanny and Mary are shown as variations of the angel and monster character respectively, since they exhibit some differences from a complete angel or monster character. The ill-effect of patriarchy can also be seen m Austen's characterization of the angel, monster and human characters among the women, because these characters are shown to behave in the way that they do, in direct proportion to patriarchal approbation that they wish to attain. For example, Fanny is shown to have gained the approval and love of the patriarch as a reward for her submissive and dedicated behaviour. "Fanny was indeed the daughter that he [Sir Thomas] wanted ... " (MP, 385) and, "... dearer by all his own importance with her than any one else at