Mothering Daughters

The rise of the novel and of the ideal nuclear family was no mere coincidence, argues Susan C. Greenfield in this look at the construction of modern maternity. Many historians maintain that the 18th century witnessed the idealization of the caring, loving mother. Here Greenfield charts how the newly emerging novels of the period, in their increasing feminization, responded to and helped shape that image, often infusing it with more nuance and flexibility. By the end of the 18th century, she notes, novels by women about missing mothers and their suffering daughters abounded. These works eventually became part of a literary tradition with politically complex and psychologically enduring effects. Highlighting the novels of Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Wollstonecraft, Maria Edgeworth, Amelia Alderson Opie, and Jane Austen, the book relates these works to contemporary representations of female sexuality, pregnancy, and breastfeeding, to parliamentary debates about child custody, and to discourses about colonialism and racial difference. It offers a cultural context in which to read various works of early women novelists, while placing the concept of motherhood in a broad historical context.