How Writing Made Me More Of A Feminist

What’s an independent woman to do in a world where marrying means losing ownership of everything, even herself?

The first book of my Redway Acres series, Helena, references a piece of English law from the early 1800s called Coverture. “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband.”

Do we, as women, really consider this fact when we enjoy another remake of Jane Austen’s wonderful Pride & Prejudice? Lizzy becomes the property of Darcy along with everything she owns, and she can’t refuse him anything, not even her body. Admittedly, his financial position is stronger than hers, but that wasn’t the case in every situation, and isn’t the case in Helena.

I do, of course, draw inspiration from Austen’s work and even quote my variation of the first line of P&P: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a widow in possession of property, must be in want of a husband.”

Helena, a young widow in early 1800s England, inherits her grandfather’s stable and prized horses. She showers love upon her daughter and the horses, and they adore her in return. Outspoken and opinionated, Helena holds no interest in men until she meets Nathaniel. Is this a tale as old as time? Certainly, but when Nathaniel sets out to capture her heart and eventually proposes marriage, what will she do? I won’t give away her decision—you’ll need to read the story to find out—but let me tell you, I mulled on the whys and wherefores for a long time.

How did this make me more of a feminist? In several different ways.

Reading that Coverture law started me thinking. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that was the case in the 1800s. Yet there it was in black and white, and it made me angry. I felt especially angry for all the women back then who had no choice, no say, I ended up appraising where we are today. How far have we come? Would the suffragettes be shocked to know that a hundred years after their struggle to get us the vote we still don’t have equal pay?

As I wrote Helena’s outspoken responses, familiarity prickled the back of my neck. For example, Alexander Harker, her wealthy neighbor, offers to assist her with running her business and afterward, broaches the subject of her relationship with his young female ward, whom he believes Helena is influencing with her ‘independent opinions’. Helena promptly turns his words back on him, leaving him wondering what hit him. One of my favorite scenes is when she tells Nathaniel why she thinks women are not ‘allowed’ to ride astride. “The only beast a man wants a woman to have between her legs is himself.”

In writing these and other responses to the men of that bygone time, I came to realize there are still many men who think they know best, and will even tell a woman what she should think or feel. I discovered something called ‘mansplaining’, and if you don’t know what that is, it’s well worth Googling. I even had a man suggest that future titles of my books might be Nathaniel or Alexander, but Redway will always be about its women.

As Helena writes in her diary, “I have never met a man who does not think he is better than a woman, or knows better than a woman, no matter how highbrow the woman, or lowbrow the man.”

In Redway 2 and 3, both Maria and Martha suffer due to mistakes they make, albeit in different circumstances and with different outcomes. For the men involved, there are no repercussions, but for our heroines, life becomes very different and difficult. In the front of Martha (book 3), I quote a passage from an 1857 editorial in The Times. “It is a terrible incident of our social existence that the resources for gaining a livelihood left open to women are so few. At present, the language practically held by modern society to destitute women may be resolved into Marry – Stitch – Die – or Do worse!” Despite the societal norms and expectations placed upon 19th Century women, some managed to step out of their narrow roles and prove themselves capable. Many of today’s women have more opportunities available to them than ever before, but sadly, some still do not.

With each of my five Redway books (Helena, Maria, Martha, Harriet and, coming soon, Amelia), I attempt to show women overcoming the restrictions of social expectations, the consequences of mistakes made in their youth, and the domination of men who would control and own them, even abuse them. Ultimately, Redway’s heroines must find the strength and the means to pursue their aspirations in life. Though these are fictional characters from an era two hundred years past, as I developed their individual personalities, their struggles seemed only too familiar, as did their determination to persevere and prevail as women have done since the dawn of humankind.

Each book can stand alone as a story about the title heroine, but woven throughout the series are events from the lives of their families and household members, the nearby villagers and townspeople, and even some horses. Taken as a whole, the intertwining fortunes of these women compose a saga.

Redway Acres – Helena (book 1) ebook price will be discounted  this week, before book 5’s release.

Redway Acres – Helena (book 1)

Set in early 1800s, England…

Mrs. Helena Andrews is the widow of Captain Andrews who died in battle. Leaving all she knows behind her in Norfolk, she travels to Lincolnshire to live with her grandfather, Redway Acres stable owner, George Stockton. There she will raise her daughter.

Left to run Redway alone following her grandfather’s death, she makes friends with an old widower in a ramshackle cottage, the family from a local, grand estate and their friend, a colonel and second son of the Earl of Aysthill, Nathaniel Ackley.

She’s an opinionated woman in a man’s world, who loves her daughter and her horses, and will stand up for those in need.

Her story is one of horses, strength of will, music, friendship, love and loyalty.

 

About the Author

Trish Butler is the author of the Historical Fiction saga, Redway Acres, and now a new contemporary detective series based in the fictional New Jersey town of Rockmond.

Born in Norwich, in the county of Norfolk, England, Trish moved to Connecticut in the US, in 1999. Her daughter was born there two years later.

Currently, Trish works as Communications Director for the Connecticut Family Support Network (CTFSN) a non-profit organization that helps families with children with special needs. Trish’s own daughter is on the autism spectrum.

Redway Acres, which Trish calls Pride & Prejudice with horses and a healthy dollop of feminism, is set during the early 1800s in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, UK, an area that she knows well. Over the past nearly twenty years, Trish has got to know the tri-state area well too, and hopefully enough American English terms that make the new book sound authentic.

Trish always wanted to write a book and at age fifty, finally realized that dream. Three years later, at the end of 2018, Trish hopes to have five books in the Redway series published, and the first in her new series of Rockmond PD Mysteries.

Read her blogs about her process, the Redway Acres saga, Rockmond PD Mysteries, and her characters on her website.

www.trishbutlerauthor.com

Follow Trish on Twitter @trishbutlerauth

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing