By Jessica S. Trombley
Catherine Louisa Pirkis’s serial, The Experiences of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective (1893), reflects the evolving expectations concerning women’s roles in Victorian society. The sexist views of women referenced throughout the series remind us of the reality for most women at the time. However, the fact that the serial portrays a female detective as the hero and brains of the story is proof enough of the changing times. Loveday thwarts convention and uses sexist stereotypes to her own advantage.
Women of the nineteenth century had to fight an uphill battle for their voices to be heard. What Barbara Welter calls the “Cult of True Womanhood” discouraged women from being active participants in Victorian society.[1] According to conventions of the time, “religion or piety was the core of women’s virtue, the source of her strength,” effectively imposing standards on women that were irrefutable due to their basis in the Bible.[2] The Cult of True Womanhood held that in order for women to be respectable, they must be silent, nurturing, domestic creatures of piety and purity. For women to adhere to these standards, their lives had to be entirely devoted to domestic life rather than educational and professional opportunities outside the home.
As women became more and more restless, they found ways to get around these standards while still maintaining their reputations. They argued that their positions as homemakers qualified them to discuss domestic issues in the press, which could cover a broad selection of topics, but the unchanging expectation was that women needed to remain domestically engaged, which allowed them little time for activism and work outside the home. Women of higher class were more easily able to identify and adhere to the Cult of True Womanhood since “most working-class women had to bring cash into their household” from outside work in order to support their families, leaving their reputations open to tarnish.[3] Catherine Louise Pirkis skillfully situates Loveday Brooke in this environment to spark a discussion. As Loveday assumes a public position that automatically sets her up for scrutiny, questioning, and untrue womanhood, she proves herself in a way that shows her awareness of these expectations and her purposeful rebellion against them.
The first story in the Loveday Brooke serial, “The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep,” sets up Loveday as a feminist character whose intelligence and ability to carefully outwit the men around her is what salvages her reputation. She knows that she cannot outwardly argue with her employer and that she must carefully outsmart those who doubt her. By solving this first case, she proves herself despite the doubts of her employer, saying, “Of course, the ludicrousness of the diction of the letter found in the bag would be apparent to the most casual reader; to me the high falutin sentences sounded in addition strangely familiar.”[4] She positions herself above the casual reader, her boss, who had previously reviewed and disregarded the letter she had brought to his attention. This letter, of course, proves to be the case-breaking clue.
Loveday also rejects the expectations of society by not marrying. Her decision reflects broader trends in Victorian society. With the number of unmarried women increasing, women “[moved] from what they themselves considered the proper sphere—the home—into the workplace,” thus leaving behind any hope of maintaining their membership to the Cult of True Womanhood.[5] The number of single women was also increasing due to the rise of first-wave feminism, which championed the rights of unmarried women. Early feminist Barbara Leigh Smith wrote in a 1856 pamphlet that any married woman “can hold nothing of herself, she has no legal right to any property; not even her clothes, books, or household items are her own, and any money she earns can be robbed from her legally by her husband, nay, even after the commencement of a treaty of marriage she cannot dispose of her own property without the knowledge of her betrothed.”[6] It is likely that Loveday had taken heed of this warning and decided to remain unmarried in order to maintain a semblance of financial and bodily freedom. This alone made her a pariah according to the Cult of True Womanhood, but she does not seem to mind.
In addition to Loveday Brooke, Pirkis created secondary characters meant to spark discussion about the stereotypes faced by women in Victorian society. Victorians were obsessed with the preservation of their reputations, which meant that they carefully hid private matters from public view. The constant presence of female servants in the upper-class home was a symbol of high social status but also a source of anxiety. Victorians feared that their personal lives would be exposed by the gossiping domestics who were privy to the potentially disreputable secrets of their homes. Throughout the serial, Loveday Brooke is able to gain valuable information regarding the family and home from domestic staff. For example, in “The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep,” the chatty Mrs. Williams helps Loveday solve the case by providing crucial information. This reinforces the stereotype of women as gossips, but the context of the situation frames this stereotype in a positive light. As a detective, Loveday herself can be seen as giving into her base feminine desires to snoop and gossip. However, she turns this stereotype to her own advantage using it to fashion a marketable career.
Because Loveday is so carefully constructed, she earns the love and attention of readers. By challenging sexist social constructs, she inspires Victorian women to support her work as a pioneer feminist. She also inspires readers of today, who might otherwise look at women of the past and wonder at their complacency. Examining the Loveday Brooke serial through a feminist lens, we can more clearly understand the roles and expectations of women in Victorian culture and how women of that time defied these norms in order to build a foundation for modern feminism.
Notes
[1] Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820–1860,” American Quarterly 18, no. 2 (1966): 152.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Sonya O. Rose, Limited Livelihoods: Gender and Class in Nineteenth Century England (London: Taylor & Francis, 1992), 76.
[4] Catherine Louisa Pirkis, The Experiences of Loveday Brooke: Lady Detective (New York: Dover, 2020), 25.
[5] Patricia Marks, Bicycles, Bangs, and Bloomers: The New Woman in the Popular Press (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990), 55.
[6] Barbara Leigh Smith, A Brief Summary in Plain Language of the Most Important Laws Concerning Women: Together with a Few Observations Thereon (London: Holyoake, 1856), 8.
