Controversy with Women and the Novel :: Free Essay Writer

Women and the Novel â€Å"Novels on novels–shelves on shelves arise, of various merit, as of various size: But good and bad, promiscuous as they fall, A greedy host advance, and swallow all Like Egypts reptile race, they crowd their way, Nor rank nor age, nor place, their progress stay, They throng the gaudy mansions of the great; they greet the poor pan in his humbler state; nor in the proudest dome or meanest hovel, can human blood and flesh resist a novel" (Ware) During the 18th century a new genre of reading came into existence: novels. â€Å"Novels were different from earlier prosefiction [as they abandoned] traditional structure: (Kerber 236). Novels allowed readers to experience other people’s lives. â€Å"Characters became real people with real names who led lives much like those of their readers† (Kerber 236). As books became more readily accessible novels became increasingly popular especially with women. This is where the problems began. A woman’s responsibility (according to the patriarch society) was to the home–to raise her children to be good Christians and to be servile to her husband in all things. Some people began to feel that reading distracted women from their duties. This is illustrated in the following poem. And see! They mount the toilet of the fair, and seek and find an easy homage there. Domestick drudery can scarce advance it’s claims in competition with romance grumbling the brother or the husband goes and thus discovers, that romantick scenes are not the thing for ladies in their teens. Balls parties mean-times, are alike forgot; Poor Byron lies unread, and Walter Scott: cares, duties, pleasures without notice pass; And everything neglected, but the glass– (Ware) There was a real fear that reading novels would disrupt the woman’s duties by giving them "false ideas of life and particularly made women unsuited for and unhappy with the domestic roles for which society destined them" (Nienkamp xiv).