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Husbands, wives, and lawyers: Gender roles and professional representation in Trollope and the Adelaide Bartlett case

College Literature, Winter 1998 by Reiter, Paula Jean

There is, however, one subject which Mr. Trollope pursues with unremitting zeal. He cannot bear a lawyer. They are all rogues, not by nature, but by profession.

Smalley 156 1

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The long list of memorable lawyers that grace Anthony Trollope's fiction attests to what one reviewer called his "unremitting zeal" on the subject of legal representatives. Trollope's obvious fascination with lawyers from all walks of life-from the outrageous Chaffenbrass to the impeccable Grey-has piqued the interest of modern scholars as well as his contemporary reviewers. Critics variously explain the presence of so many lawyers by reading them as part of the novelist's general theory of character, form, or morals; as evidence of his view of society; or as echoes of his biography.2 In the first part of this article, I consider Trollope's lawyers in light of his concern with professional representation. In mv discussion, I use the term "professional representation" in a dual fashion to mean the delineation of the professional character and role, and also to mean the task a legal professional undertakes in speaking for and advising a client. In other words, the term is both what a professional is and what he does. As I will argue, the two work in conjunction. As professionals labor to represent clients, they simultaneously argue for special privileges, authority, status, and an exclusive social role for themselves. To put it another way, nineteenth-century legal professionals argued on behalf of their clients while setting the boundaries and articulating the justifications for their own growing cultural authority.

Trollope made a particularly logical choice in selecting legal professionals for novelistic treatment. Legal men play central roles in highly dramatic situations, such as marriage settlements, wills, criminal cases, and parliamentary politics. Such tensions provide ideal plot lines, but plot did not fascinate Trollope to nearly the same degree as character did. Characterization was Trollope's forte, so it should come as no surprise that he lavishes attention upon his lawyers, whose calling (like that of novelists) required them to represent others. However, it is not the relationship between the lawyer and the novelist that I find so compelling in Trollope's fiction. Instead, I find the relationship between the Victorian professional and the Victorian husband to be a complex and significant one worthy of examination. In my examination, the role of the guilty female client serves as a lightning rod for myriad anxieties and opportunities for professional men. In fact, I posit the nineteenth-century woman as the pivotal symbolic figure in issues of professional representation. The lies and stories that Trollope's legal men must tell in defense of their guilty female clients trace the underlying currents in both heterosexual gender relations and professional development. To understand the confluence of the professional man with the role of husband, we need to consider the defining contrast the femininzed Other offers each, especially in terms of the ability to speak and act publicly.

When representing a client in court, a barrister not only molded the version of his client that he wanted the court to believe, but he also literally spoke for his client. The representation provided by a barrister was thus two-fold: he constructed a narrative that he hoped would clear his client, and he physically stood in for his client and his client's voice. The value and believability of representations crafted by attorneys proceed at least in part from the privileged voice they have in a courtroom. Specialized legal discourse is supposed to produce truth. This leads directly to the second type of representation: providing a voice for the client and standing in for the client. The voice of the barrister presumably is "better," more authoritative, or more rational. As I will show, the stories barristers tell and the dynamics of the attorney-client relationship articulate and mimic the lines of conventional Victorian gender roles, particularly those within heterosexual marriage. In the professional relationship, the client plays the feminine role of the private, dependent, silent "wife" seeking public and legal representation. The professional plays the masculine role of the pub lic, knowing, vocal "husband" providing this public, legal representation.

This pattern is most clearly visible when the male lawyer represents a female client or, in other words, when gender and biological sex characteristics line up. Although, technically, neither men nor women could speak in their own defense until 1898 (placing both in the feminized role vis-a-vis the professional), symbolically, proper women could not speak for themselves in any area of public life. As Susan Heinzelman and Zipporah Wiseman observe, "certain individuals and groups have come to be seen as able to speak for themselves, while others have been relegated to the category of those who must be spoken for" (2). Victorian women fell into the second category. When a woman defendant sought legal representation-to construct a believable story and to speak for her-she consciously reenacted the role she played outside the courtroom as a wife. "Good" women did not speak for themselves, but were represented by fathers, brothers, or husbands. Lady Mason, Trollope's most memorable female defendant, clearly understands these dynamics and uses them to her advantage in securing appropriate representation.

Husbands, wives, and lawyers: Gender roles and professional representation in Trollope and the Adelaide Bartlett case

College Literature, Winter 1998 by Reiter, Paula Jean

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