Elucidating False Claims by: Lauren F. Dayton  But while they provide shelter for women abandoned by society, the “reforms” espoused by women of Millenium Hall do not actually challenge the established social system or the existing gender roles. Instead of supplying an alternative, their reforms maintain an oppressive hierarchy. In this way, the female proprietors of Millenium Hall are merely fulfilling the role men play in the rest of British society, albeit in a benevolent way. The reforms proposed by the Millenium Hall women and later imitated by the protagonist Sir George Ellison are undoubtedly compassionate, but they make no effort to address fundamental social inequalities. In this way the reforms of Millenium Hall are not an alternative to patriarchy, but rather patriarchy under the façade of feminism and compassion. In order to understand how Scott’s reforms are conventional, it is important to consider their historical context. Female philanthropy was fashionable in Scott’s day because it was newly associated with domesticity. Corresponding with the rise of a middle class in mid-18th century Britain, the concept of virtue changed rapidly: the classical view of civic virtue, with its masculine and militaristic connotations, was replaced by a more feminine, domestic virtue (Harrington, 34). Women were seen as a mediating force between the inherent greed of capitalism and virtuous society. In this context they took on a new role: women were responsible for the moral education of their households and society at large. Philanthropy, concern with the plight of the needy, allowed women to develop and demonstrate virtue. The cult of the middle-class philanthropic woman developed so quickly that by the end of the 18th century the “domestic woman” was perceived as an essential element in moral society (Harrington, 34). As role-models, these women could pursue intellectual goals as long as they were charitable and virtuous. An example of the growing social consciousness of the female middle-class is “bluestocking feminism,” a movement for the reform of female salon culture that emerged in the mid-18th century. Scott’s sister, Elizabeth Montagu, known as the “queen of the bluestockings,” was the pioneer of this movement. The goal of the “bluestockings” was to promote serious conversation about literature and cultural topics in women’s social groups (Hall, 16). The “bluestocking ladies” were predominantly middle-class, although many of them, including Scott’s sister, came from upper-class backgrounds. The rise of this movement reflects the development of women’s social role once they were perceived as responsible for moral and cultural education. But the perception of women as role-models of virtue does not necessarily reflect widespread changes in the perception of their intellectual capacities or capabilities. Political conversation was actually excluded at “bluestocking” clubs (Hall, 16). So while the first wave of “bluestocking” feminism offered women new opportunities, it did not attempt to expand women’s place in society. In this historical context, Millenium Hall reforms provide women a more pleasant living situation but do not attempt to correct any fundamental social inequalities. The true nature of Scott’s proposed reforms can be examined at three levels: the hierarchy of education; the parallels between the situation of the Millenium Hall recipients and Ellison’s slaves; and the way Millenium Hall acts as a domestic space for its inhabitants, effectively “normalizing” their situations. All of these reforms appear, at face value, to be innovations in the social order because they improve the situations of women. But upon closer consideration, these reforms reinforce the extant social order by satisfying women’s material deficiencies without offering them personal agency. When Ellison returns to Millenium Hall in History, the proprietors inform him of their goals for rectifying what they perceive as a poorly-executed system of female education. In their estimation, properly educating young women of the upper and middle-class “is almost as charitable an action as nourishing the bodies of the poor” (History, 99). Demonstrating the 18th-century preoccupation with women’s responsibility for social virtue, the women of Millenium Hall are concerned about the fate of girls whose parents are unqualified to properly educate them. They propose a three-tiered system of education, “peculiarly adapted to [the girls’] stations,” designed to provide them all with a similar grounding in virtue, but tailoring the other aspects of education to the specific social class of the student (History, 97). Regardless of level, the schools would have small classes and heavily emphasize the importance of religion. Beyond these traits, the nature of the instruction would vary widely according to tier: girls of the highest rank would learn music, drawing, writing, arithmetic, science, languages, and dancing. Those of the second rank (the ones deemed likely to marry “men in good trades, country gentlemen of small estates, or men in the church, army, or some other employment”) would have lessons emphasizing practical economy (History, 95). Instead of exposing them to intellectual ideas, the instructors would teach them to cook and sew. These restrictions were not purely for practicality: music and drawing would be forbidden, for fear these subjects would facilitate narcissism.  Rank-based educational discrimination is most blatant in the third and lowest tier of the Millenium Hall plan: these girls would be taught only writing and basic bookkeeping, and the remaining time would be dedicated to instruction of domestic skills like washing, needlework, animal husbandry, and cooking. The third-tier girls would be denied the title of “Miss” to maintain “the distinction that ought to be kept up between them and their superiors” (History, 97). These proposed reforms to female education are not about empowering women but about improving their prescribed roles. The Millenium Hall women, reflecting the ideas of the established patriarchal order, work to ensure that they train the girls to be virtuous, efficient housewives rather than support their social or intellectual empowerment. This ideology of guised amelioration is also employed by Ellison on his slave plantations: he improves his slaves’ living conditions but does not free them. He is, in his own words, “no leveller” (History, 79). When his peer, Sir William, accuses him of living beneath the appropriate level of dignity, Ellison points out:
Even Ellison, who demonstrates what Scott terms “super-human levels of compassion,” finds no contradiction in his ideals of kindness and subordination. A wealthy male authority figure, Ellison predictably supports the social status quo. The controversy lies in the similarities between Ellison’s relationship with his slaves and the Millenium Hall proprietors’ relationship with their beneficiaries. They, like Ellison, ameliorate the conditions of their dependents. But their power to improve the women’s lives rests on the women having nowhere else to go, the same way Ellison’s slaves are not free to leave his plantation. The six proprietors are women who were all cruelly excluded from society. The majority of the text of Millenium Hall is a series of narratives outlining the proprietors’ stories. “The descriptions [of British society at large] and the “histories” alternate throughout the text, and together they link the oppression of women to the oppression of other powerless social groups” (Hall, 28). By the time Ellison returns to Millenium Hall in History, these women have reached out to other ostracized women. When three of the beneficiaries tell him their stories, they all employ the language of slavery and oppression. The first, Mrs. Alton, who was forced to live with her brother and his wife and simultaneously serve a housekeeper, cook, and nurse, tells Ellison that while she did not resent working for her brother, “to be made a slave, and yet reproached as a burden, was more than I could well bear” (History, 105). Another woman, unnamed in the text, suffered at the hands of a would-be female benefactor who forced her to accept gifts and favors and then held her to a personal debt of obligation. The unfortunate woman was trapped for three years, “enslaved by gratitude and cowardice” before escaping to Millenium Hall (History, 114). A third woman, also unnamed, could not support herself because her proud relatives refused to allow her to work after her parents’ deaths and would not provide her with an alternative. This woman bemoans her relatives’ value of “a slavish dependence” over “honest labour” (History, 116). These women associate the language of slavery with their social positions because they, like slaves, lack personal agency: prior to Millenium Hall, they were essentially enslaved. Emphasis on gratitude is the most compelling parallel between Scott’s presentations of Ellison’s slaves and the Millenium Hall beneficiaries. Simply by providing adequate food, Ellison gains the overwhelming adoration of his slaves. This gratitude is further demonstrated by the example of an unruly slave who is sold to a less benevolent master. The slave becomes so wretchedly contrite that Ellison buys him back and Scott describes the slave’s joy as “near proving fatal; the sense of that gentleman’s goodness, and his fortunate restoration to happiness, entirely overpowered his spirits” (History, 18). The same language of excessive gratitude is present in the tales of the three women Ellison encounters at Millenium Hall. Mrs. Alton proclaims that the Millenium Hall beneficiaries have “every blessing in life” and “few have had equal reason to be grateful” (History, 109). The woman trapped with the tyrannical benefactor, declares: “How pure ... is the gratitude we feel in this place!” (History, 114). Excessive gratitude is Scott’s way of illustrating the improved situations of women and slaves. The implication is that if the women and slaves are so blissfully grateful, a more radical social alteration is unnecessary. The lives of women at Millenium Hall are a substantial improvement from their pasts, but they are not free. Their material needs are met, but the women are at the mercy of the female proprietors. The recipients acknowledge their dependency but dismiss it because their conditions are pleasant: “We are indeed dependent, but reflexion only can make us sensible of it; here dependence exists without those chains and fetters which render it more galling than the oppressions of the most indigent, but free, poverty” (History, 101). Because the Millenium Hall brand of dependence is benign (it lacks “chains and fetters”), it is tolerable. But if their dependence is exploited, it will be worse than the alternative, poverty. Scott’s utopia allows for female happiness but not necessarily individual agency. Rather than redefining social structure, her utopia simply incorporates women who were previously excluded.  for the local poor children; they act as wives and mothers. They form a new family. These women are not free-agents: their behavior is regulated by the Millenium Hall proprietors who inspect their houses for cleanliness and neatness (Hall, 67). This regulation of female domestic behavior makes Millenium Hall a problematic refuge. It does not offer an alternative to the restrictive patriarchal structure; it simply provides female surrogates. Dorice Elliott, in her article “Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall and Female Philanthropy,” explains how Millenium Hall fits the model of an 18th-century “House of Charity,” an organization that was designed to place “unruly and independent women first into a family-like institution, and eventually into an actual family” (541). In the vocabulary of 18th-century British social order, “unruly” and “unmarried” were practically synonymous. These asylums were intended to “imitate their Maker, in a work of creation as well as redemption; that is, in making bad women into good ones. “Good” women, of course, were domestic women (541). Treatment of the midgets confirms Millenium Hall’s confining qualities. Like the women, midgets are living at Millenium Hall because discrimination prevents them from earning a living. The midgets’ situation is worse, however, because they were purchased by the Millenium Hall proprietors, whereas the female beneficiaries arrived voluntarily. The proprietors house the midgets in an enclosure in the woods like a cage at the zoo. In the context of their agency and mobility, these dwarves’ situation is parallel to that of the female beneficiaries: “Like Millenium Hall itself, which is situated in a remote location and surrounded by a thick growth of trees, the asylum for the “poor creatures” both frees and imprisons its inmates. Significantly, the objects of this unique charity, who are both victimized and valued for their appearance, are in many ways like victimized ladies” (Elliott, 548). And so Millenium Hall is not quite the innocent refuge it appears to be. Scott’s novels seem to propose reforms that benefit women, but the truth is complex and sinister: while the reforms improve women’s situations, they do not offer any improvements in women’s social agency. Scholar Hilary Brown and others neglect to consider the contexts of utopias when they conclude Millenium Hall is a haven purely because it operates by and for women. According to Brown, the Millenium Hall proprietors have “the power to organize and run the estate — usually a male domain — but choose to do so in a wise and altruistic way” (472). The proprietors’ benevolence does not justify their authority over the female beneficiaries. Even though Millenium Hall provides social services generally denied to these women, it does not offer them any additional rights. The Millenium Hall reforms maintain rank and social class and regulate female behavior by restricting women to existing domestic structures. In reality, Scott’s novels simply cover the current social system in a veneer of compassion and present this façade as change.§ Works Cited Brown, Hilary. “Sarah Scott, Sophie von La Roche, and the Female Utopian Tradition.” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 100.4 (Oct. 2001): 469-481. JSTOR. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. Elliott, Dorice Williams. “Sarah Scott’s Millenium Hall and Female Philanthropy.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 35.3 (Summer 1995): 535-553. JSTOR. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. Harrington, Dana. “Gender, Commerce, and the Transformation of Virtue in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” Rhetoric Society Quarterly. 31.3 (Summer 2001): 33-52. JSTOR. Web. 25 Feb. 2010. Scott, Sarah. A Description of Millenium Hall. Ed. Gary Hall. Toronto: Broadview, 1995. Print. Scott, Sarah. The History of Sir George Ellison. Ed. Betty Rizzo. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1996. Print. Further Reading Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study Chilla Bulbeck, Re-orienting Western Feminisms: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial World |
Dayton |