Abstract
Our previous chapter showed us the acceptance of modern methods of shaming which turned around the successful censuring of reprehensible behaviour in a sophisticated public sphere. This was the course of action chosen by the people of Wexford in 1825. However the case discussed in this chapter dates from 1870. As such it introduces us to some further issues later in the century that undermine the idea of a linear, modernising, history of shame. Shame, by this point, had partly evolved to be carried out upon reputation (in the case of William Hughes). Yet, the case discussed in this chapter emphasises the application of shame upon the body, ironically in this case to preserve and perhaps even enhance public reputation. In this we discover that shame was also capable of being turned into public ‘entertainment’ to discuss wider cultural reputations.
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Notes
For an extended discussion of domesticity, the lower middle class and social expectations see A.J. Hammerton (1999) ‘Pooterism of Partnership? Marriage and Masculine Identity in the Lower Middle Class, 1870–1920’, Journal of British Studies, 38, pp. 291–321.
Anthony Trollope (1869) He Knew He was Right ( London: Strahan and Co.). We are grateful to Professor Gail Savage for drawing this to our attention.
See A.J. Hammerton (1990) ‘Victorian Marriage and the Law of Matrimonial Cruelty’, Victorian Studies, 33, pp. 269–92.
One of the salient features of the Kelly case had been the husband’s strict confinement of his wife to the marital home. See A.J. Hammerton (1990), ‘Victorian Marriage’, pp. 287–8.
See J. Carter-Wood (2004) Violence and Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: The Shadow of Our Refinement ( London: Routledge).
A.J. Hammerton (1990) ‘Victorian Marriage’, p. 287.
See for example G. Savage (1998) ‘Erotic Stories and Public Decency: Newspaper Reporting of Divorce Proceedings in England’, Historical Journal, 41, pp. 511–28
K. Ottesen Garrigan (1992) Victorian Scandals: Repressions of Gender and Class (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio University Press).
T.N. Brushfield (1864) ‘On Obsolete Punishments, with Particular Reference to those of Cheshire: Part I–The Brank, or Scold’s Bridle’, Journal of the Archaeological Society of Chester, 2, pp. 31–48.
See also the chapter on ‘Rough Music’, in E.P. Thompson (1991) Customs in Common (London: Penguin), pp. 501–2 for a discussion of other nineteenth century remnants of the Scold’s Bridle.
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© 2010 David Nash and Anne-Marie Kilday
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Nash, D., Kilday, AM. (2010). ‘The Woman in the Iron mask’: From Low Life Picaresque to Bourgeois Tragedy — Matrimonial Violence and the Audiences for Shame. In: Cultures of Shame. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230309098_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230309098_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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