Moll Flanders and English Marriage Law
Melissa J. Ganz, Yale University
Volume 17, no. 2, January 2005
©McMaster University, 2015. All articles published on the Eighteenth-Century Fiction website are protected by copyright held by Eighteenth-Century Fiction, a journal published by the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University.
ABSTRACT
Halfway through Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe’s eponymous heroine receives a marriage proposal from a bank clerk. A cuckold, the clerk has won a decree of separation from his wife and now seeks to make good on his promise to marry Moll. Moll, however, raises “some Scruples at the Lawfulness of his Marrying again” and advises her friend to “consider very seriously upon [this] Point before he resolv’[s] on it.” Moll’s objection, of course, is richly ironic, as Moll herself is already married. Her husband, the Linnen-Draper, has long since left her, but she remains his lawful wife. Keenly aware of the restrictive nature of English marriage law, Moll has capitalized upon the clerk’s own conjugal trouble. She has advised the clerk to turn to the courts — knowing that he could obtain only a separation from his wife, rather than a full divorce enabling him to remarry — because she wished to delay their match. Now that the clerk has obtained the decree, Moll objects to his proposal because she is pregnant and needs to put him off a little longer. In Moll’s words, in her dealings with her banker friend, she “Plays the Hypocrite” (195). … Moll’s scruples, however, turn out to be more than a matter of convenience.
Other ECF articles on the topic of “Law” include:
Manley’s “Feigned Scene”: The Fictions of Law at Westminster Hall
by KATHRYN TEMPLE (ECF 22.4, Summer 2010)
“Extraordinary and dangerous powers”: Prisons, Police, and Literature in Godwin’s Caleb Williams
by QUENTIN BAILEY (ECF 22.3, Spring 2010)
“A Living Law to Himself and Others”: Daniel Defoe, Algernon Sidney, and the Politics of Self-Interest in Robinson Crusoe and Farther Adventures
by COBY DOWDELL (ECF 22.3, Spring 2010)
©McMaster University, 2015. This copyright covers the exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute the article, including in electronic forms, reprints, translations, photographic reproductions, or similar. While reading for personal use is encouraged, Eighteenth-Century Fiction articles may not be reproduced, broadcast, published, or re-disseminated without the prior written permission of Eighteenth-Century Fiction at McMaster University. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material is not allowed. The copyright in this website includes without limitation the text, computer code, artwork, photographs, images, music, audio, video, and audio-visual material on this website and is owned by McMaster University. ©McMaster University 2015.