This new extended blog seeks to examine the abuse and cruelty of Catherine Dickens (Nee Hogarth) by her world-famous author husband. In doing so, highlight Charles Dickens' behaviour towards Catherine in the context of the Victorian notion of coverture and the twenty first century term of coercive control.
It is my contention that she played out her life with Dickens in the 'white noise of coercive control, ever-present and ever-threatening. Catherine's strength to live with this and to function daily in a range of domestic and social settings - to survive - was enormous and courageous' 1.
Mr Dickens: A Demon in Plain Site?
Even the most casual student of Charles Dickens' life cannot fail to be disappointed at his public persona and outstanding literary accomplishments in journals and novels should be at such variance with the man and the husband. Even by today's standards, he is probably no different than many a famous public figure, and would certainly apply to countless 'ordinary people in personal relationships who behave repeatedly in a way that makes their partner feel 'controlled, dependent, scared and isolated' 2.
Arguably, Dickens was not, as far as we know, violent towards Catherine, but he did attempt to use his considerable influence and contacts to get a doctor to sanction her admission into a 'lunatic asylum'. This was in no way a casual 'nod and wink' to a friendly doctor, but a serious and nearly successful attempt to lock Catherine away on the spurious grounds of 'mental disorder'. Bending the law to his will was clearly not beyond Dickens' reach, and why not, when his best friend, Edward Buluer Lytton, had 'successfully plotted to have his wife Rosina seized, certified insane and incarcerated in a private asylum' for three weeks 3. Many Dickens scholars and biographers have written about his appalling behaviour towards Catherine pre and post Ellen Turner affair, but it was the so-called 'Violated Letter' of 1858 attempting to 'discredit' Catherine 4, that led to a shocked reaction and best-summed up by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to say 'What a dreadful letter that was! And what a crime for a man to use his genius as a cudgel... Against the woman he promised to protect tenderly with life and heart'. Barrett Browning goes on to add 'taking advantage of his hold with the public to turn public opinion against her. I call it dreadful' 5. There was an attempt by Catherine to mitigate against the letter's authenticity, but the damage had already been done 6. The attempt to publicly discredit, belittle, degrade and intimidate Catherine are examples, I would argue, of coercive control 7.
Returning to Dickens' attempt to 'put Catherine away', it is important to stress the broader context during the Victorian era. By publicly stating that Catherine was suffering from a mental disorder was 'sufficient for a certificate of moral insanity to be drawn up' 8.
Miriam Margolyes claims that Charles Dickens 'terrified and depressed' Catherine and uncompromisingly refers to his mental cruelty and that his own relations with women were all damaged, incomplete or destructive'. She goes on to observe that 'Miss Haversham (Great Expectations) was Dickens himself' 9. Surprisingly, Margolyes says of Dickens that 'his humanity descends his cruelty' - really!
Dickens' depiction of women has been scrutinised during the past two hundred or so years, and this is not the place to explore in detail over and above acknowledging that 'when it came to the problem of man/women relationships, he was severely hampered, not only by the attitudes of his age', but as Holbrook says, 'his emotional makeup and psychic pattern' 10. It is, however, timely before we look at the notion later of Coverture to name-check firstly the works of Isba, Claire Tomalin and Lillian Nayder. I have deliberately referenced three female Dickens scholars. My reasoning being that, in any explanation of the relationship between Dickens the abuser and Catherine the abused, I am anxious that any interpretation of that relationship is gender-sensitive, ensuring her agency in the context of both Coverture and coercive control.
Anne Isba argues that Charles 'infantilised' Catherine who, despite bearing him ten children, 'before being dumped', references 'the weird relationship Dickens had with his sister in law Mary'. For readers unfamiliar with this 'weird relationship', I quote the following by Isba from Dickens in a letter to Lavimia Watson a year before he broke up with Catherine and at the height of his wooing (I might say grooming) Ellen Ternan his eighteen year old mistress.
I wish I had been born in the days of ogres and dragon-guarded castles... I wish an ogre with seven heads had taken the princess who I adore - you have no idea how intensely I love her! - to his stronghold on the tip of a high series of mountains and there tied her up by the hair. Noting would suit me half so well this day, as climbing after her, sword in hand, and either winning her or being killed. 11
The 'princess' is obviously Mary Hogarth (sister in law); the 'sword in hand' - let's leave it there! Remember Mary died in Dickens' arms at the age of seventeen years, and he repeatedly during his marriage to Catherine referred back to her sister not infrequently, comparing Mary to Catherine, and wanted to be buried next to her. Weird? In the context of coercive control, perhaps not! Isbar also references Dickens' 'infatuations with teenage girls and his fantasies of being a hero of young (attractive) women' 12.
There are for our purpose two important books by Dickens scholars. Claire Tomalin, firstly her book Invisible Women (1990), which is about the relationship with Ellen Ternan and its impact on Catherine, and indeed Charles' behaviour towards her and her children, especially the fate of Plorn. Secondly, her seminal biography Charles Dickens: A Life (2012). When writing about the year 1858, Tomalin says 'you want to avert your eyes from a good deal of what happened'. She evidences Dickens' 'unforgiving callousness towards his children, and even egregious attitude towards Catherine' 13. Tomalin also writes that Dickens' physical deterioration which 'most if not all writers dramatically deteriorated in the 1860s'.She speculates, and the author David Abrams agrees, that his 'unspecified but unpleasant and persistent symptoms were, by the way, most-likely gonorrhoea 14. Dickens' children claimed that their father 'behaved like a madman... And saw their mother humiliated'.
That callousness is picked up in Tomalin's Invisible Woman, with regard to Plorn, who was 'unwillingly packed off to Australia' in the late 1860s and only two years prior to Dickens' death. Plorn was sixteen years old! Tomalin is quite right to point out that 'even in the circumstances of Victorian family life and economics are taken into account, it seems a harsh way of treating a not very bright boy' 15. In fact, Dickens during this period denied Catherine three of her sons who were forced to leave England. She, however, as Nadir points out, despite her powerlessness to stop Dickens, 'ensured she spent time with each of them and wrote frequently, and at length, until her death in 1879' 16. Isolating a mother from her children is a behaviour common in coercive control.
Certainly between 1858 through to Dickens' death in 1870, the Dickens household and relationships fractured, and whilst the Ellen Ternan affair was perhaps a catalyst, there is an argument that Ellen herself as a seventeen year old child was also a victim of Dickens narcissistic (NPD), bipolar and, some would say, sociopathic personality. I suppose the debate or conjecture about Dickens' own mental health and personality will forever continue to explain his cruelty; but it is time to look at Dickens through the lens of Victorian Coverture and Catherine's experience of it.
The Principle of Coverture: Catherine's Subordination to Dickens
I am particularly indebted to Helen Picolli via Twitter (@Helen88811) who, during a Twitter thread, introduced me to Lillian Nadirs, The Other Dickens. Helen was responding to my Tweet 'on this day I reflect on Mrs Catherine (Kate) Dickens (1815-1879)', her fortitude, her determination and above all her strength as a daughter, a wife, as a friend. I reflect, too, on her being the victim of coercive control by her A-lister celebrity husband (#IWD2019). Helen quotes Nayder in that she debunks this tale in retelling it, wrestling away from the famous novelist the power to shape his wife's story. She demonstrates that Dickens' marriage was a long and happy one 17. We took the discussion offline via a series of DMs, and I read the book which I have liberally quoted here and elsewhere. The book is indeed a powerful piece of scholarship and reflected my long standing view that Catherine Dickens' story was totally constructed by Dickens. That said, I had never seen Catherine as weak and disorganised or lacking in resilience, but, at the same time, I acknowledged that Victorian values and norms permitted and even expected that wives would be subordinate in all things to their husbands - 'the logic of coverture' 18. Nayder deviated from the other Mrs Dickens to her memory. I named my pet pug in her memory, too!
Quoting Nayder, 'coverture signifies a woman's dependence on and subordination to her husband, as well as his obligation to protect or to cover her. More specifically, it stipulated that a woman's legal selfhood was subsumed by that of her husband upon marriage, when they became 'one person'' 19. A wife could not have a legal identity in her own right, losing agency, autonomy, self-determination and control. No wonder Dickens loved hypnotising her and other women in his controlling orbit. He may not have just been weird; but, he was certainly a control freak!
Under coverture, Catherine took her role as his wife and mother very seriously. Frequently, and perhaps even always, 'subordinating her identity and duties as a mother to those belonging more strictly to Dickens' wife when asked to do so' 20. Dickens would, from their early days, also take his responsibilities under Coverture seriously. He was, by nature, an obsessively controlling and micromanaging man, and my impression, reading Nadir et al, is that he should have really married a pug, for Catherine was certainly no 'stubborn donkey'. He treated and referred to her in those early years of marriage as if she were a pet (e.g. my beloved), encouraging her to always be at his beck and call, meeting his demands, even excessive requirements, and to accommodate him in ALL things. Coverture did not sanction such behaviour. She had 'an identity that acknowledged her worth, but as an object of affection, tracing her value to a source outside herself, her husband's feelings and perceptions' 21. Nayder, however, is absolutely correct in her observation that 'Dickens' identity as the Inimitable 'allowed for almost any kind of behaviour, but the 'Beloved' is a restraining sobriquet, prescribing a narrow range of behaviour, and revocable at Dickens' will' 22. Had Catherine been a pug, one could just imagine being taken by Dickens on one of his numerous long walks, being let off the leash and him calling out, 'here, kitty, kitty!'.
Catherine may have been the 'Beloved of her husband', but she was Catherine Hogarth and Nadir powerfully reclaims her as such. In addition, she was mother, sister, daughter, niece - and these roles she did not relinquish, and Coverture did not 'grant Dickens the power to erase or subsume her as such' 23.
Her motherhood was a given, but Coverture did require her to give Dickens priority. The ability of Catherine to negotiate, to ignore, and on occasions to contest this, and even to thwart her husband, reinforces the recuperation of Catherine Hogarth. Nevertheless, Coverture did play a significant part, not just on the couple of occasions he attempted to hypnotise her, but generally in her 'selfless submission to him' 24.
During their marriage, Catherine would act as Dickens proxy in matters related outside the husband-wife relationship; but even then she herself realised that that proxy did not out-proxy that of his male proxies. Dickens frequently overruled her decisions, thus undermining the so-called authority he had given her. Catherine, not surprisingly, was 'weary' when Dickens urged her to judge for herself - to consider matters in her own eyes and follow the 'influence of her own heart (Pilgrim Letters 7225) - knowing her word was not the last in most matters' 25. Coverture did not 'sanction' humiliation, undermining and violence as we will explore later; but, it did (as always) nourish over countless generations the abusiveness of countless men. Coercive control?
There are a number of examples from Dickens' extensive network of married acquaintances and friends who, whilst also living with coverture, found Dickens, at best, unreasonable and at worse abusive in his application of it, not least of which the Hogarth family, which came to a head in the Ellen Ternan affair. It is important to remember that whilst coverture was institutionalised and an obligation, the husband had an obligation to protect his wife from ill treatment and certainly not be the perpetrator of it. Dickens certainly did not materially neglect Catherine. He did, however, limit her powers of decision making, expression and, arguably, her 'significance as a person in her own right' 26. He was duplicitous, a liar, deceiver, trickster, humiliater, and overall, in David Adams' description, 'an arse' 27.
When in 1858 Catherine eventually signed a deed of separation drawn up by Dickens and his solicitors, it was primarily a financial contract, but it did not, as Nadir points out, 'violate the principle of coverture' 28. A judicial, civic separation required proof of Dickens' wrong-doing, which she did not have. The settlement was considered generous but Catherine arguably remained under coverture by two male trustees who would provide her with the required guardianship. Open access to her children was written in the deed, but this did not stop Dickens denying her freedom to when and how.
Coverture, however, provided cover to the continual Othering of women; and, whilst during the Victorian era their 'role improved considerably', and legislation safeguarded a number of rights, it was clear that Dickens had no concept of 'the new woman'. His behaviour towards Catherine is rightfully considered cruel and abusive. There have been a number of writers who have sought to give Catherine agency in her own right. Coverture is a curious legal doctrine and without doubt limited a married woman's rights. It dates back to medieval times and through to the Victorian. Through these epochs, many women 'creatively used or subverted Coverture' 29. Coverture was, however, a legal fiction in that a husband and wife are one person in this doctrine, but was enshrined in Common Law. It was during the mid 1800s however that it came under increasing criticism as oppressive towards women. Had Charles Dickens turned his considerable reforming influence and focus to the words of his own creation... Mr Bumble (Oliver Twist) when informed that 'the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction', he replies 'if the law supposes that... The law is an (sic) arse - an idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that its eye may be opened by experience' 30.
As a common doctrine and in her own way, Catherine was at ease with nineteenth century Coverture, but probably based upon the relationships within the Hogarth family experienced as a child growing up with her parents and siblings. Her experience however living with an 'angry and controllable husband' was to be of an entirely different order. It is now time to explore Charles Dickens through the twenty first century lens of coercive control.
Coercive Control: Inside the Mind of the 'Inimitable'31
As I was indebted to Helen Picolli and the author Lillian Nayder in the previous section, I am now indebted to Joan Merideth and the work of the Choice Project at the University of Aberystwyth Wales, and the author Lundy Bancroft 32 33. Coercive control is a term developed by Evan Stark and refers to 'a pattern of behaviour which seeks to take away the victim's liberty or freedoms, to strip away their sense of self. It is not just women's bodily integrity that is violated but their human rights' 34. Abuse is not simply about one-off or repeated acts of physical violence, it incorporates a whole range of behaviours. And, using Stark's rationale in coining the term, it 'explains a range of tactics used by perpetrators and the impacts of those actions on victims/survivors. It is 'how men entrap women in everyday life'' 35. It is furthermore not mental abuse.
There are a number of signs that would be associated with coercive control. Those of particular importance in our Dickens discussion are:
- Monitoring activities with family and friendship networks
- Repeatedly checking up on you
- Questioning your behaviour and decisions
- Setting deadlines for your return home if visiting relatives and friends
- Isolating you from those relatives and friends; and/or
- Choosing your friends and acquaintances
- Controlling what you spend and how you spend it
- Controlling or negatively disparaging comments on what you wear and how you look
- Telling you what you should eat
- Putting you down in public
- Getting angry at the slightest little thing
- Creating an environment both within the family home or outside it where you are in constant fear of upsetting him
- You have to do things in a particular way or they get angry with you
- Your needs are secondary to his
Adapted from learning mind - 20 signs of coercive control that reveal you are being manipulated in a relationship, 2019
Obviously, some of these behaviours and others may be contextualised as other offences, as well as coercive control. Today, these would and could be treated as criminal offences 36. It is important to stress that coercive control is when a person with whom you are personally connected repeatedly behaves in a way that makes you feel controlled, dependent, isolated or scared 37.
Did Catherine Dickens feel controlled, dependent, isolated or scared? Was Catherine Dickens alarmed or distressed by the inimitable behaviours? Did it cause her to alter how and when she socialised? The key question is, was Dickens' behaviour simply a reflection of the institutionalisation of nineteenth century coverture? If this were so, then, arguably, he cannot be criticised in the twenty first century, behaving as he did due to cultural relativity. Even with a cursory knowledge of Dickens the husband set against the coercive control signs listed above, should we argue that the nineteenth century lack of human rights, the notion of coverture and coercive control is a somewhat academic argument? Some might even say naïve. Regardless, it is my contention that custom and practice, legislated or not, did not make policy of a given custom right. Coverture was such a custom and exists even today.
Bancroft reminds us that there are presently millions of women who have never been beaten 'but who live with repeated verbal assaults, humiliation, sexual coercion and other forms of psychological abuse' 38. Here, he evidences that abusing men can and do have 'many good qualities, including times of kindness, warmth and humour, especially in the early period of a relationship... He has a successful work life... And when she feels her relationship spinning out of control, it is unlikely to occur to her that her husband is an abuser' 39. Reading Bancroft's introduction and section 'The Tragedy of Abuse' he could be talking about Dickens and Catherine's experience of him, and what is crucial is his point that 'the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times' 40. 1858 for both Dickens and Catherine may have been a watershed when the mask of Dickens was removed, showing the nakedness of his cruelty and viciousness.
Dickens never did anything he considered morally unacceptable; he had a distorted sense of right and wrong; and his value system (coverture) was unhealthy. Regardless of his journalistic and writing success, his behaviour towards Catherine did not improve 41. What was the Dickens reality? Dickens was without a doubt controlling; he felt under coverture 'entitled'; he twisted things into their opposites; he disrespected Catherine and considered himself superior to her; he confused love and abuse; he was manipulative; he obsessively sought a good public image; he felt justified; he denied and minimised his abuse; he was possessive. He in fact ticked every single box in Bancroft's analysis of the abusive mentality 42.
There are two areas worth a brief mention: addiction and sex. There is no evidence as far as I can tell with regards to alcohol, but we know he was a workaholic and that he had an addictive personality. With regard to sex, we are aware he regularly visited prostitutes and, according to some biographers, his sexual activities with Catherine, if judged by Nadir, was loving. I am not sure if this was necessarily true. Addiction takes many forms, and we will perhaps never know how he looked at sex over and above he refers to it in typical Victorian doublespeak and code in his letters. Sex, however, to Dickens was about meeting HIS needs. It was in all probability Catherine's responsibility to have sex with him when he wanted and it was her job. Coverture to a large extent 'considered that marriage is the moment her body transferred to his ownership' 43.
We know that sex is a way of establishing power and dominance. Did Dickens de-personalise Catherine? Was Dickens sexually aroused by Mary Hogarth, Georgina Hogarth and others? He clearly was by Ellen Ternan. Were there real or fantasy relationships with prostitutes and others a way of humiliating Catherine? These are questions of Dickens scholars to untangle; but they are also questions that need to be viewed in the context of not just relationships of the nineteenth century but of the twenty first. The Victorian court of opinion brought into Dickens own narrative, that his early biographers were seduced by the public image Dickens portrayed. He hid his abuse in plain site. His celebrity status determined the narrative. That narrative over the past two or three decades has rightly been seen to be a myth; and I would personally argue that his continued literary acclaim and belief that 'his humanity transcends his cruelty' 44 in no way excuses this most angry and controlling of nineteenth century famous men.
Catherine Hogarth did indeed live during her marriage years and up until her death in the white noise of coercive control. She did so with fortitude and courage. In my view, it is she who is to be celebrated and admired. It is her voice that needs to be heard loud and clear.
References
1) Adapted from Scottish Women's' Aid. What is coercive control? CEAR network website (undated) 'coercive control is the white noise against which she plays out her life; ever present, ever threatening. The strength to live with this and to function daily in a range of settings - to survive - is enormous and courageous'.
2) www.learning.mind.com 20 signs of coercive control that reveal you are being manipulated in a relationship
3) Bowen, J, Our Mutual Friend, Times Literary Supplement (19th Feb, 2019)
4) Pilgrim 8: 740, Letters of Charles Dickens
5) Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 5th October 1858, Maggs Brothers Catalogue (Summer, 1922, quoted in Pilgrim 8: 648-49, No. 4)
6) For a detailed account refer to the excellent Lillian Nayder's recent publication "The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth", Cornell University Press, Ithaca, London, 2011, PP268-272
7) Goddard S, 10 ways to spot coercive control. Abuse does not have to be physical. Cosmopolitan 240718
8) Sotherland J, Victorian Fiction: Writers, Publishers, Readers in Boweng, (Ibid)
9) Margoyles and Fraser S, Dickens' Women, quoted CHITOLN, culture editor, The Telegraph Book Review, 26012016
10) Holbrook D, Charles Dickens and the Image of Women. First edition. New York, New York University Press (1993), cited in essays. UK (November, 2018). How Dickens depicts women. Retrieved from HTPS://www.ukessays.com/essays/english/literature/charles-dickens-depicts-women-3864.php? vref=1. Author not cited.
11) Isba, Dickens' Women: His Wife and Loves (date not referenced)
12) Ibid, cited in Chilton Martin
13) Tomalin C, Charles Dickens: A Life (London, 2012), cited in Abrams David. The Dark Side of Dickens. MASTODON: SUBMIT. 7022012. Here, Abrams writes 'it is a truth universally acknowledged that CD was a genius, but CD the man was an arsehole'
14) Ibid, Tomalin and Abrams D
15) Ibid, Tomalin, cited in Nayder The Other Dickens. Footnote 86, Invisible Woman
16) Ibid, Nayder L, p287
17) Ibid, Nayder, p2
18) Ibid, Nayder, p2
19) Ibid, Nayder, p19
20) Ibid, Nayder p21
21) Ibid, Nayder, p103
22) Parker D, The Doughty Street Novels. (New York, AMS Press, 2002), cited in Nayderl, p103
23) Ibid, Nayder p103
24) Ibid, Nayderl, p117
25) Ibid, Nayder, p219
26) Ibid, Nayder, p223
27) See footnote reference 13 above
28) Ibid, Nayder, p251
29) Stretton T, Kesseliring KJ, (author and editors), Married Women and the Law: Coverture in England and the Common Law World (Montreal, 2013, p15)
30) Shapiro (2006), p197-8
31) Title inspired by Bancroft L, Why does he do that? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. Berkeley Books (New York, 2002)
32) The Choice Project (Aberystwyth University). I heard Joan speaking when I attended a meeting of the Choice Steering Group (29/03/19). Her story as the wife of a controlling partner. It was powerful and the choice project introduced me to the reality of coercive control
33) Ibid, Bancroft L. Lundy Bancroft has spent many years specialising in domestic abuse and the behaviour of abusive men, and was former co-director of Emerge, the USA's first program for abusive men. He at the time of writing practised in Massachusetts
34) Ibid
35) Ibid
36) Came into force on 29th December 2015 and only applies to behaviour that occurred after this date
37) Coercive control and the law: rights of women: helping women through the law (Feb, 2016)
38) Ibid, Bancroft L, p8
39) Ibid, p9
40) Ibid, p9
41) For a summary, Bancroft listed in detail seventeen myths about abusive men, pp23-4. Out of the seventeen, twelve could apply to Dickens
42) Ibid, Bancroft, pp49-75
43) Ibid, Bancroft, p175
44) Ibid, Margoyles M, 26th January 2016
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