The Concepts of Marriage and Adultery Based on Two French Novels from The 19th Century

Defining Marriage in 19th Century France: An Exploration of Female Adultery

The Industrial Revolution began in earnest in France in the early 19th century. As the economy transitioned from the feudal “cottage industry” of homemade textiles to the large factory model and railroads crisscrossed the nation, these transformations resonated in society as well (Maynes). “The transition from mercantile to industrial manufacturing… terminated the relationship between home and business and made for a separation of the sexes and a sharp definition of functions” (Smith 16). Thus, men drove this new rising industry, and their wives remained at home, tending to the children and “keeping house”. “The development of industry accented the division of the world by gender” and effectively institutionalized an idea of separate and rigid spheres for the sexes, where women remained totally isolated from the burgeoning male-dominated capitalism (Smith 49). In addition, though many historians (validly) cite the 19th century in France as one where religious fervor was gradually decreasing, the Catholic Church was still a cornerstone of French society and very much intertwined with people’s lives, even in secular spheres. Thus, Catholicism and its underlying religious tenets of virginal femininity coalesced with new economic expectations to create a very narrow definition of what was expected of women.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the literature of the time reaffirms these expectations and ideals that became woven into the societal fabric. The gender roles that religion helped to establish and that industrial processes institutionalized can be seen in both Madame Bovary and Bel-Ami through the characters of Emma Bovary and Madeleine Forestier. Though both women are vastly different and find themselves married to men who are virtually polar opposites of each other, each experiences similar societal constraints within their marriages, and while they do demonstrate that this firmly-entrenched institution of marriage can be subverted and expectations partially avoided to some degree, these small instances of leeway that women do have are overshadowed by social and religious values which make marital equality impossible and inextricably link female adultery with impurity and immorality.

Though both novels demonstrate the strength of the institution of marriage in the mid-19th century, the historical analysis of the time period is even more compelling. In the years between 1849 and 1879, marriage rates were increasing (Camp 37). Divorce, on the other hand, was incredibly rare, and even by the year 1900, only 1.6% of all marriages involved a person who had been previously divorced (Camp 59). Though the French Revolution had legalized divorce in 1792 on radically-liberal grounds for the time – marital breakdown or simply incompatibility, in which neither party would be held responsible – divorce was soon after restricted under Napoleon, then completely abolished in 1816 (with female adultery and mental illness as the sole caveats) with the restoration of the monarchy and reinstatement of Catholicism as the state religion (“Divorce and Women in France”). It would not be until 1884 that divorce would be legal again, almost thirty years after Madame Bovary was published and only one year before Bel-Ami. Not only was marriage virtually permanent, (with “separation as the only legal device for terminating marriage during the life of the couple”, apart from the other two conditions listed above) but it was hierarchical as well (Camp 72). “Within each household a hierarchy existed between...husband and wife” (Smith 131). Thus, it is understandable that a wife could feel stifled, or at least constrained, by society’s pervasive gender hierarchy that extended into marriage.

The experiences of Emma Bovary and Madeleine Forestier within their individual marriages exemplify the effects of some of these legal and societal constraints. Emma, first, is passionate and impulsive, a total juxtaposition to Charles, and she quickly finds herself “stripped of all illusions, with...nothing more to feel….She could not believe that this uneventful existence was the happiness she had dreamed of….Oh why, in heaven’s name did I ever get married!” (Flaubert 37, 41). It is evident throughout the novel that the stability and permanence of marriage reduce a character like Emma who dreams of so much more to both literal and figurative madness. Emma consciously recognizes the impact that this has on her, saying that her beauty and romantic idealism “had become smirched by marriage” and that she “would have liked to escape...and fly away” (Flaubert 216, 214). The entrapment that Emma feels as a results of Charles’s dispassionate, dull personality as well as the erosion of her spirit that she claims occurs to her is quite dramatic, but nonetheless a very direct reaction to the fact that she is expected by society to live happily and permanently with a man for whom she feels nothing.

Madeleine, on the other hand, is quite different, as she is just as rational and collected as Emma is impulsive. In addition, her initially-superior status over Georges gives her a greater degree of agency, which she makes very clear to him before they are to be married: “For me, marriage is not a shackle but an association. I insist on being free, completely free to act as I think fit, to go where I please, see whom I choose, whenever I wish….The man would also have to….look on me as an equal...and not as an inferior or an obedient, submissive spouse” (Maupassant 218). This overt statement is incredibly radical in the fact that it directly contradicts both underlying and overt gender roles. Madeleine’s insistence on fair and equal treatment illustrates an understanding of her own marriage that is quite different from Emma’s. Where the latter seeks a passionate love, Madeleine recognizes the reality that she will not likely find that within the confines of marriage and instead seeks a partnership. She is thus able to achieve a significant degree of agency within her marriage, though she certainly does not achieve this fully. In addition, Madeleine is distinctly objectified by her husband. As his status, influence, and confidence increase, Georges’s attitude towards her becomes more forceful and determined. He speaks of her as a prize to be won who would make him stronger, but also as someone he can conquer: “He was now firmly resolved to use every possible means to marry her if she seemed to be hesitating….He had confidence in his luck and in the powers of attraction...vague and irresistible powers that no woman could resist” (Maupassant 223). This statement demonstrates the shift in Georges’s attitude from one of initial timidity towards Madame Forestier to supreme dominance that results in a marriage where he views himself as superior over his wife. Though at this point in the novel he claims to love her, he also seeks to assert his dominance and force her to marry him, an example of the reinforcement of gender hierarchy of 19th century France.

Despite the fact that these two women do face effects of male supremacy within marriage, there are certain ways in which these constraints can be temporarily or partially skirted, to varying degrees of success. One way in which Madeleine achieves this is through her writing. Though she is quite talented, she can only be published in the name of a man. Thus, she writes through Georges, “whisper[ing] suggestions to him as to how to phrase it. Now and again she would hesitate and ask him: ‘Is that really what you want to say?’” (Maupassant 255). This approach is subtle but quite powerful. Not only is she able to directly dictate to him what to say, but she can also change his words to her own without him fully realizing. In a society where female journalists could be gossip columnists but not serious political journalists, Madeleine finds a way to escape societal constraints; yet, the fact that she must do this through her husband lessens this act from a victory of female talent to one of individual ingenuity. Emma finds some means of subverting society as well, though they are somewhat more trivial than those of Madeleine. Her love of novels allows her to dream of an existence that is distinctly different from her own, although, as opposed to Léon, she, as a married female, is relegated to dreaming of the boulevards of Paris instead of actually walking them. Though this isn’t a literal distortion of gender ideals in the same way that Madeleine’s writing is, it is nonetheless a means of distancing herself from a reality which she finds endlessly bleak.

However, the primary way in which both women temporarily escape the confines of marriages is through sexual affairs, something quite common at this time, for “while the modern male might be deceptive in his business dealings, the modern female is deceptive in sexual matters of the body and of the heart” (Goldstein). For Emma, these are numerous, passionate, and incredibly devastating when they inevitably come to an end, yet they do give her a taste of the love that she constantly and fervently wishes for as well as a means of temporary escape. Flaubert writes, “There periods of separation were becoming intolerable….Whenever she was seized with a sudden desire to see Léon, she would set out with no matter how flimsy an excuse” (250, 268). In having various affairs and feeling such strong romantic notions that are nonexistent with Charles, Emma does find a means of temporarily warping the confines upon her; she neglects her marital duties for her own pleasure. Though her various affairs are ultimately successful, contributing to her eventual suicide, sexual affairs give Emma a means of distancing herself from the expectations of marriage and motherhood as well as the monotony of life with Charles. They certainly do bind her to other men temporarily, sometimes eventually turning into pseudo-marriages in their own right, yet they allow for the shunting of standards on pure femininity and chastity within marriage.

Madeleine’s affair with Laroche-Mathieu is far more successful than those that Emma has. Her rationality and practicality do not allow for the same passionate recklessness that drives Emma’s actions. As readers, we do not know much about this affair, yet it is clear that Madeleine is able to conceal it from her husband for the majority of their marriage. After she is no longer a conquest to be had and Georges has become occupied with various other women, he seems to forget about his wife for the most part, until eventually “he reflected that in fact the only woman who never bothered him was his wife. She lived her own life” (Maupassant 320). This passage comes after chapters about Madame de Marelle and Madame Walter, ones in which Madeleine is only briefly referred to but rarely interacts with her husband. Thus, she is even able to avoid the narrative of the novel for the most part, just as she periodically removes herself from her marriage and does as she pleases, despite still being bound to Georges. Of course, her adultery is eventually discovered and she is societally disgraced, yet her ending remains somewhat optimistic. When asked of Madeleine’s whereabouts at Georges’s second wedding, Norbert de Varenne replies, “She’s living quietly tucked away….I’ve been reading political articles in La Plume which are terribly like Forestier’s and Du Roy’s….From which I conclude that she’s fond of beginners and always will be” (409). Though Madeleine does fall victim to the expectation that wives remain faithful to their husbands – a stark juxtaposition to the very hypocritical Georges who manipulates women time and time again for his own gain – she has a more hopeful ending than Emma and clearly finds ways around the gender hierarchy. On the other hand, however, her experiences and ultimate societal disgrace demonstrate just how potent and prevalent those sentiments are.

Though it is clear from both of the novels that extramarital affairs were a device that could give some degree of agency to women, they were also inextricably linked to immorality, and adulteresses were stigmatized for failing in their feminine and wifely duties. This, of course, is a much different from males, like Georges Duroy who is encouraged to take various mistresses, as woman are “still the quickest way to succeed” for men in society (Maupassant 41). The fact that men were simply more powerful in 19th century French society is one possible answer of why this distinction is made between male and female adultery, yet the reasoning behind the phenomenon is far more complex. One incredibly important influence was the church. As previously discussed, the nineteenth century was a period of slow decline for Catholicism, yet it was very much present in both overt and underlying ways. Resulting from a gradual loss in status, “we see the Church's desire to be more visible – lavishly so – in the city streets”, one means of which was lavish processions through the city streets, thirty of which happened throughout 1879 (d’Hollander). In addition, church weddings were very important to the upper class. Though a civil service was required as well, the church wedding “could cost large amounts of money and might have hundreds of guests” and was resultantly an important social event, more so than a religious one (Bahorel). Thus, if people were becoming less Catholic, they still had a strong interest in appearing to practice the religion in society. Stable, faithful marriages were an important way of doing this and had already been woven into the societal fabric through centuries of French Catholicism.

In addition, legal codes sought to hold marriages in place and reinforced male dominance as a means of doing this. As mentioned, divorce was illegal in this period, save for the discovery of adultery. However, the punishments for male versus female adultery were very different. In addition to the fact that it was much more difficult to find a husband guilty of infidelity (it had to be proven that he had been keeping a concubine regularly in the family home), women could be sentenced to up to two years in prison while men only had to pay a fine (Bahorel). Legal codes of the time therefore directly reinforced the stereotype that women must be pure and chaste, but men could essentially do as they pleased as long as they remained somewhat discreet, a juxtaposition evidenced through Georges, who is praised for his womanizing, and Madeleine, who is exiled for a very discreet affair. Inheritance and property laws show a similar pattern: immediately, upon marrying, all property belonging to the wife would become the possession of her husband (Bahorel). Within the marriage, everything that she owned became his, and even after her husband died, the wife was at the end of the list of possible heirs, after children and parents, grandparents, and other relatives of the husband. The wife inherited the estate if and only if none of these potential heirs were eligible or living. This, like so many other codifications of the societal gender hierarchy, enforced the idea that the female purpose was to have (male) children who could continue the legacy of their father; her function was solely biological, and she was, in the eyes of the law, interpreted as such.

Historical events, religious and civil codes, and the characters of Madeleine and Emma demonstrate that the gender hierarchy that existed in society translated into marriages and reinforced the ideal of femininity as submissive, chaste, and fertile (but only with one’s spouse). The fact that women were able to subvert these constraints in some ways can not be ignored, yet when this was done through sexual affairs, it came with a price – the stigmatization of impurity and immorality, a lasting impact of religious tenets, codified into law and underlying social morality. The fact that both Bel Ami and Madame Bovary are written by male authors offers an interesting twist on the ways in which 19th century France viewed itself. The fact that both female protagonists are adulterous, to different degrees of discretion, alludes to the definite recognition of what was going on behind closed doors; it is only when this finds its way out into the open, in the case of Madeleine, or disrupts spousal duties, as with Emma, that it becomes a threat to the entrenched “sacred” structures of society, namely the stable, permanent institution of marriage.