Marie Corelli's British new woman: A threat to empire?

At the height of the British Empire, England was in the midst of major social, economic and moral upheaval. The roles and status of middle-class women were particularly affected by many of these changes. In turn, as the gap between idealism and ‘reality’ grew, the validity or usefulness of Victorian...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe history of the family Vol. 14; no. 4; pp. 416 - 429
Main Author Rosa, Sharon Crozier-De
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Elsevier Inc 01.01.2009
Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
British imperialism
Colonial New Woman
Gender
Gender ideals
Great Britain
Imperialism
Marie Corelli
Middle Class
Middle-class family values
New Woman
Novels
Reading public
Right to vote
Role Conflict
Sex Role Identity
Social Change
Social history
Social norms
Social values
Turn of the Century
United Kingdom
Victorian Period
Women's participation
Women's rights
Womens Roles
Gender ideals
Marie Corelli
Colonial New Woman
Middle-class family values
British imperialism
Reading public
New Woman
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Summary:At the height of the British Empire, England was in the midst of major social, economic and moral upheaval. The roles and status of middle-class women were particularly affected by many of these changes. In turn, as the gap between idealism and ‘reality’ grew, the validity or usefulness of Victorian notions or ideals of womanhood increasingly came under attack. Arising from this commotion was the figure of the late Victorian and Edwardian ‘New Woman.’ Her appearance provoked further confusion and ambiguity about gender that had repercussions for empire. This paper addresses the way in which the role of English women in sustaining the British Empire intensified the social pressures on them in the metropole. It examines the threat to nation and empire represented by the New Woman by looking at how she was presented to the rapidly growing general reading public at the end of the nineteenth- and beginning of the twentieth century. This is achieved by looking at the bestselling novels of Marie Corelli, a phenomenally popular turn-of-the-century author. Corelli's novels repeatedly affirm that the New Woman represented the threat of ‘modernity,’ that she was a danger to ‘civilisation’ and therefore to British imperialism.
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ISSN:1081-602X
1873-5398
DOI:10.1016/j.hisfam.2009.04.003