Hiam Brinjikji

Women and property is one of the central themes in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Dickens wrote this novel during the mid-nineteenth century, a period when women's property rights were being intensely debated in England. His depiction of propertied women in the novel reflects Victorian England's beliefs about women's inability to responsibly own and manage their own property. Miss Havisham is presented as the embodiment of women's failure to properly manage wealth and property. Mr. Havisham's settlement of the bulk of his estate on his daughter, despite the existence of a male heir, is unconventional, as the property system operated on a patrilineal basis. Estella's economic tragedy illustrates consequences of disposing property onto women who will inevitably marry. She suffers the loss of her property at the hands of an unscrupulous husband who misuses her fortune. The most recent analysis of the chronology of Great Expectations shows that the main action spans between 1812 and 1829 (Carlisle 5). Dickens clearly gives attention to wealthy women who own property and are susceptible to abuse. The social and historical context of the penning of the novel, and the period during which it is set, suggests a criticism of women's property rights.

Despite the existence of a male heir, Mr. Havisham rejects the patrilineal system of property distribution and wills the bulk of his estate to his daughter, Miss Havisham. Mr. Havisham is a wealthy brewer whose first wife dies during Miss Havisham's infancy. Later, Mr. Havisham "privately" takes his cook as a second wife and she bears him a son (176; ch. 22). After the death of his second wife, Mr. Havisham reveals his secret marriage and moves his son, Arthur, into the family home. According to Victorian conventions, Arthur stood to inherit his father's brewery, as it constituted "Real Property." However, Mr. Havisham was very displeased with his son and considered disinheriting him, but relented on his deathbed and left him well off, though not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham (176; ch. 22). Mr. Havisham believed he was making a sensible decision in bypassing the patrilineal system and settling most of his wealth and brewery on his daughter. Thus, Miss Havisham is now situated as the character through whom Dickens presents and explores the social and economic consequences of propertied women. Susan Walsh argues that Miss Havisham "is an important index to the local economies beneath the more ahistorical fairy tale motifs that structure Great Expectations; she is one of the means by which Dickens demarcates the commercial parameters within which Victorian men operated" (74).

As an unmarried woman in Victorian England, Miss Havisham enjoys the legal status of feme sole, which gives her complete control over her wealth and property. Miss Havisham, now a wealthy young heiress, becomes the target of an opportunistic swindler. She falls in love with Compeyson and accepts his marriage proposal. Miss Havisham's love for Compeyson makes her vulnerable to the "systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her" (177; ch. 22). Against the advice of Mr. Pocket, Miss Havisham is "induced" by Compeyson "to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had been weakly left to him by his father) at an immense price" (177; ch. 22). In addition to rejecting Mr. Pocket's advice, she does not seek the advice of legal council, which may have advised against her investment, but as she was "too haughty and too much in love, to be advised by anyone" (177; ch. 22). Furthermore, Miss Havisham exhibits reckless behavior in not insisting on a marriage settlement to protect her property from her future husband. Compeyson pleads that once he is her husband "he must hold and manage it all" (177; ch. 22). Without a prearranged marriage settlement, Compeyson would have legally absorbed Miss Havisham's estate into the marital property. Ross Dabney explains that "In the relation of Miss Havisham and Compeyson Dickens puts together infatuation, romantic disappointment, and cash speculation" (127). Her decisions to squander money on her fiancé and enter into contracts and marriage without legal council jeopardizes her estate. This can be viewed as a criticism of Miss Havisham and women's inheritance of property, as her uninformed and emotionally based decisions result in financial devastation.

The combination of woman, love, and property in Great Expectations proves economically lethal. Miss Havisham's fiancé never shows up for the wedding. Instead he sends a letter which upon reading makes Miss Havisham realize she has been defrauded. It is suspected by her relative, Herbert Pocket, that Compeyson "didn't marry and get all the property" because "he may have been married already" (178; ch. 22). This explanation is supported by the fact that with the exception of a few cases, divorce was legally prohibited. Her emotional and psychological devastation at being left at the altar is manifested in the decay of her property as "she laid the whole place waste" (178; ch. 22). Dickens' depiction of Miss Havisham's abuse of her estate parallels the belief that women were considered incompetent to exercise control over property or the power that it brings. Walsh says that

Miss Havisham had been bilked, jilted and humiliated by a false fiancé; in response, she had immolated her women's body and the brewery's manufacturing economy in one furious sweep. In so doing, she effectually repudiated the role of women's economic...capital within the family enterprise system, a business model still central to Victorian culture in general. (74)

The economic consequences of Miss Havisham's investment decisions provide an argument against women acquiring substantial property. Miss Havisham illustrates the perilous capacity of independent, propertied women to waste family fortunes upon sharp practitioners dressed in gentlemen's clothing (Walsh 93). The family brewery stood "idle as it is, till it falls" as a constant reminder of the economic wasteland created by Miss Havisham (69; ch. 8). Furthermore, her father's decision to will her the brewery, coupled with her decision not to marry, severs the patrilineal property line. Walsh says, "Her history as an unmarried heiress conjures up mid-century debates about women's changing roles and financial commitments" (74). It is important to take into consideration that this novel was being read against the social backdrop of demand for reform of married women's property rights. Susan Walsh explains that:

reformers began to advocate that the married woman be granted the power to own and dispose of property as a "feme sole." Miss Havisham, as a moderately wealthy "feme sole" already enjoys these prerogatives. From a conservative point of view, her errors as a single woman would seem to reflect badly upon measures aimed at giving all women greater freedom to modify or reject their customary economic roles. (74-75)

The settling of Miss Havisham's estate on her adopted daughter Estella reinforces the argument that women's control and ownership of property invariably leads to economic devastation. Estella is nurtured by her mother's corrupted and ill feelings towards men. Estella learns the nature of the economic game when Miss Havisham orders Estella to "Beggar Him" as Estella and Pip sit down to a childhood card game of "beggar my neighbor" (73; ch. 8). Estella represents the fusion of wealth and social ambition, as she marries Bentley Drummle for his social position as a baronet. Estella repeats her Miss Havisham's mistake by not insisting on a marital settlement which would have designated her inherited property as separate from the marital estate. Estella recapitulates Miss Havisham's earlier error of refusing to attend carefully enough to the economic grammar beneath the language of love (Walsh 90). Upon marrying, Estella's legal status is converted from feme sole to feme coverte. As a feme coverte Estella's estate is legally absorbed by her husband into the marital property. Although her husband was independently wealthy, that did not prevent him squandering and dissolving Estella's inheritance. Bentley Drummle proves to be an abusive husband who "had used her with great cruelty," and "brutality" (437; ch. 59). When Estella eventually separates from her husband, she is unable to reclaim any rights to her inheritance. After the death of her husband, she is able to recapture what is left of her property. As she comes to bid the Satis House property good bye, two years after she is widowed, Estella explains to Pip, "The grounds belong to me. It is the only possession I have not relinquished. Everything has gone from me, little by little, but I have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I have made in all these wretched years" (438-39; ch. 59). Estella admits the error of her judgment in marrying Bentley Drummle. Although she is working and making a "sufficient" living, Estella believes that through her experiences she has "been bent and broken . . . into a better shape" (439; ch. 59). Estella's property ownership is minimized and her economic role is redefined as her property and economic status are reshaped to a socially acceptable state.

Great Expectations settles the debate of women and property rights by restoring propertied female characters to their proper roles. Miss Havisham clearly illustrates the failure of women's ability to manage property. Miss Havisham's investment decisions and settlement of her estate on Estella proved economically disastrous. Walsh explains, "Because she wrecks the brewery and refuses to sponsor her male relatives, she blocks her financial capital from circulating within the proper channels of investment and trade, thus rendering it economically barren" (90). The novel's ending may reflect Dickens's attitude about women and property rights. Walsh explains, "For the novel to arrive at some sort of happy conclusion . . . Miss Havisham must fulfill her proper economic role" (93). Miss Havisham aids her family in economic recovery and restores the family's patrilineal system. She financially helps Herbert secure his investment in a profitable business. She also wills Mathew Pocket "a cool four thousand" (423; ch. 57). By investing in her male relatives, Miss Havisham plays a vital role in preserving the patrilineal system. The novel's ending eliminates women as an economic force and repositions them in their proper place in Victorian society.
 

Works Cited

Carlisle, Janice. "Introduction: Biographical and Historical Context." Charles Dickens. Great Expectations. Ed. Janice
Carlisle. Boston: Bedford 1996. 3-21.

Dabney, Ross. Love and Property in the Novels of Dickens. Berkeley: U of California P, 1967.

Walsh, Susan. "Bodies of Capital: Great Expectations and the Climacteric Economy." Victorian Studies 37 (1993): 73-98.

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