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

Clarke's basic contention was that a woman like Adelaide was incapable of murder. Nothing she could have said and no evidence Mr. Clarke could have presented would have carried the same, deeply ingrained message or would have rung so true to the ears of the jury. But more important, her silence allowed Dr. Leach and Mr. Clarke to tell her story, to lend her credibility by mouthing her words, to take her representation on their own backs, thereby elevating her believability by dint of their own trustworthy positions and rep utations. However convincing Mrs. Bartlett's testimony might be, her silence would be more convincing because it dovetailed with the image of a perfect middle-class wife whose silence allowed her "husband" to speak for her.

I do not mean to suggest that Mr. Clarke did nothing. On the contrary, he labored for six hours in his closing comments to ensure that the jury recognized Adelaide as that fantasy of middle-class wife that they so revered. Part of his labor involved re-orientating the responsibility for unconventional behavior brought forth earlier in the trial, such as Adelaide's relationship with Dyson, but Clarke's greatest efforts went to reiterating the values and traits of the feminine ideal that Adelaide could claim-silence, passivity, tenderness, and reliance on male judgment. The inconsistency of Adelaide's role as a wife and as a murderess formed the crux of his argument. In addition to her silence and reliance on Clarke, Dr. Leach testified to Adelaide`s patience and tenderness in nursing her often difficult husband. Her complete dependence on her barrister and doctor further solidified Adelaide's image as obedient to and leaning on male authority. How could this image be resolved with the prosecution's contention that she deliberately poisoned her husband, a most disobedient and aggressive act? Mr. Clarke argued:

It is a marvelous thing that you are asked by the prosecution to accept-you are asked-and when I use that phrase I do not mean that you will be urged, but what I do mean is, that this is what you must accept if you accept the idea of guilt or the contention of guilt-you are asked to believe that a woman who, for years, had lived in friendship and affection with her husband; who, during the whole time of his illness, had striven to tend him, to nurse him, and to help him; who had tended him by day, who had sacrificed her own rest to watch over him at night, had spent night after night without going to restful bed, simply giving to herself sleep at the bottom of his couch that she might be ready by him to comfort him by her presence; who had called doctors, who had taken all the pains that the most tender and affectionate nurse possibly could. . . you are asked to imagine that that woman on New Year's Eve was suddenly transformed into a murderess, committing crime, not only without excuse, but without any object. (Bart 294-95)

Mr. Clarke's strongest point lies in his insistence on the necessity of choosing a package deal. If the jury votes for conviction, then they must be able to resolve Adelaide's guilty, murderous action with her role as wife, nurse, and dependent woman. Mr. Clarke suggests rhetorically that this is not possible by selecting the phrase "suddenly transformed." Adelaide could not be wife and murderess simultaneously; no, she had to be transformed from the one to the other, and such a radical transformation, if ever possible, certainly would not be possible in the space of a few minutes, days, or even weeks. According to this line of thought, "wife" was an unalloyed property, certainly with no room for "murderess." Would the jury contend otherwise? Could Mrs. Adelaide Bartlett be both wife and murderess? To do so would be to destroy an idol, to admit to the fall of the angel in the house. It would also open the door for the suggestion that not all wives are "naturally" passive and in need of, desiring in fact, male representation. The jury could save the image of "wife" inviolate and keep their own role as "natural" leaders intact only by acquitting a murderess. It took the all-male jury two hours to make that choice.