Narratives of
Sisterhood: Female Friendships in Victorian Non-Canonical Fiction
Dr. Chandrama Basu,
State Aided College Teacher (Category-I),
Department of English,
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis Mahavidyalaya,
West Bengal, India.
Abstract: The rigid enforcement of the ideology of separate spheres in the
nineteenth century reinforced male dominance while simultaneously marginalising
women within Victorian society. This ideological division not only
institutionalised gender hierarchy but also produced emotional and social
distance between the sexes. Within this structure, women’s relationships with
other women—mothers, sisters, neighbours, friends, governesses, and female
servants—often became vital sources of companionship and understanding. These
interactions fostered informal networks of female solidarity that created
spaces for empathy, advice, and the sharing of lived experiences often absent
in gender relations shaped by patriarchal authority. Against this backdrop, the
present article examines the representation of female friendships in Victorian
literature, with particular attention to non-canonical novels to argue that
such portrayals frequently challenged rigid familial structures and offered
women alternative spaces for articulating their concerns and negotiating the
constraints of domestic expectations. By analysing the portraiture of female
friendships in select Victorian novels, I propose how non-canonical literature
provides a valuable archive of alternative social imaginaries in which women’s
companionship, empathy, and cooperation emerge as meaningful modes of
resilience.
Keywords:
Victorian, Non-canonical, Novels, Female Friendships
The
Victorian period is noted for its strict opinions about the disparate function
and position of men and women in society. Victorian society expected women to
be ideal wives, mothers and daughters who would be responsible for household
activities. Besides, although women were nurtured with principles and skills to
run the household, it was their male counterparts who presided over critical
decisions about the family, because they were the ones earning money. In
contrast to men who were the primary members of the family as well as the
nation, contemporary women lacked self-identity and were commonly recognized in
terms of their male relations. They were perceived as fragile, sensitive,
innocent, irrational and childlike, hence, unsuitable for operating in the
public sphere of society, outside the protective realm of home.
In Coventry Patmore’s poem, “Angel in the
House” the poet idealises and simultaneously limits the role of women to that
of the “gentle wife, who decks his board/ And makes his day to have no night,/
Whose wishes wait upon her lord” (172). Patmore delineates that while “Her
will’s indomitably bent/ On mere submissiveness to him;/ To him she’ll cleave,
for him forsake/ Father’s and mother’s fond command!/ He is her lord, for he
can take/ Hold of her faint heart with his hand” (124). John Ruskin validates
this Victorian ideology of gender distinction in “Of Queens’ Gardens” by
clarifying the difference between men and women. He attests that the male “is
eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is
for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for
conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary” (Ruskin 99).
Females, on the other hand, are modest and vulnerable beings “incapable of
error” and hence should be “protected from all danger and temptation” (Ruskin
99). Victorian England regarded men as masters and controllers of society and
women as modest beings who were required to be kept under the administration
and protection of men, because of their innate vulnerability.
This
conception of Victorian womanhood was constructed and reinforced through a
range of cultural, social, and intellectual mechanisms, including conduct
literature, systems of women’s education, and emerging scientific discourse.
While conduct books of the period instructed women on the intricacies of becoming
the ideal, untainted and virtuous domestic individual, the distinction of men
and women and the subordination of the latter in the Victorian period was also
intensified with the aid of so-called biological, scientific and medical facts
that proved the hypothesis. The work of Charles Darwin was frequently
interpreted to suggest that women occupied a lower stage of evolutionary
development, while scientists such as Paul Broca and James Crichton-Browne used
measurements of male and female brains to argue for women’s intellectual
inferiority. Medical authorities likewise claimed that the physical
constitution of the female body, particularly its reproductive functions,
rendered women inherently weaker than men. These biological arguments extended
into the psychological realm, presenting women’s supposed inferiority as
scientifically proven and thereby reinforcing the Victorian ideology that
confined women primarily to marriage, reproduction, and domestic management.
The
strict reinforcement of separate spheres in the nineteenth century, therefore,
served to bolster the domination of men and deprecate women in society. On the
one hand, this distinction created a disparity, estrangement and discord
between the dwellers of the two spheres making it difficult for men and women
to share their concerns with, relate to, or understand each other. On the other
hand, the social and emotional estrangement between men and women also created
an opportunity for women to become companions to each other. The women began to
rely on their fellow female relations, like mothers, sisters, neighbours,
friends, governesses or help maids, who resided in the same social space in
Victorian society. According to critics, “Women developed relationships with
female relatives and other women, a network upon which they relied for advice
and friendship” (Mink and Ward 2). Sharon Marcus professes in her original
study of different kinds of female relationships, "women’s relationships
were central to the Victorian period, the women were not defined only in
relation to men, and that they formed legible and legitimate bonds with one
another” (25). This reliance on female friendships engendered a space of
understanding, compassion and sometimes conflict, hitherto absent in the
dynamics of gender relationships.
Following
this, the present paper focuses on the burgeoning representation of female
friendships in Victorian literature with particular reference to contemporary
non-canonical novels which portrayed female companionship developing gradually
through shared experiences, emotional understanding, and mutual dependence.
Unlike the fixed familial structures that governed women’s lives, these
friendships are often represented as voluntary affiliations that enable women
to articulate their concerns, exchange counsel, and negotiate the pressures of
domestic and social expectations. By analysing the portraiture of female
friendships in select Victorian novels, I demonstrate how women forged spaces
of companionship and support within the restrictive frameworks of Victorian
society.
In Annie Thomas’s Best for Her, for instance, Robert Annesley invests her sister, Dolly’s
share of wealth in a property in a politically charged Ireland, before the
latter gets engaged with Captain Ronald Mackiver. After her engagement, the
older Mackivers expresses their concern over this monetary arrangement. They
are worried that Dolly’s share might be depleted in Robert’s unwise investment,
endangering the future of their son and his unborn children. They intend to
decide the terms of repayment with her brother, much to her discomfort and
despite her repeated refusals, in vain. When the dispute between the two
families escalates, she decides to abort her engagement. Throughout the novel,
the male relations of Dolly actively apply themselves to decide the best terms
for her while she witnesses the process passively and ineffectively. She did
not possess the legal or social power to influence the business- what she does
to maintain her dignity and control further degradation of the confusion costs
her, her romantic relationship.
According to Victorian laws, married women
did not have control or access to real property because by marriage, says Sir
William Blackstone “the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the
very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during her marriage, or
at least is incorporated or consolidated into that of her husband, under whose
wing, protection and cover, she performs everything” (355). This legal
nullification or absorption of the identity of women in the Victorian period
made them immensely dependent on their brothers, fathers and husbands,
rendering women vulnerable, leading an essentially parasitic existence off
others. When later in the novel, Darragh Thyne
allocates her portion of fortune to Dolly, she neither merely displays
generosity and affection towards her nor discharges herself from contrition
because one of the reasons Ronald accepted Dolly’s decision to end the
relationship was his attraction towards Darragh. She simply unburdens Dolly
from the obstructions created due to her financial crisis, because she
understands her precarious position caused due to her lack of control of
monetary issues. Darragh’s affiliation with the female characters of the novel,
moreover, is not solely based on fiscal terms but on her volition and faith in
the fulfilling interaction and community with them.
A
similar vein is also followed in Bracebridge Hemyng’s illustration of the
relationship between the two sisters in The
Stockbroker’s Wife and Other Sensational Tales of the Stock Exchange. In
one of its stories, “Blessington Girls”, Georgina and Mildred differ from each
other in both appearance and character, yet, they were extremely devoted to
each other. The author conveys: “Both were about the same height, but they
presented a singular contrast to one another, Georgina being very fair and even
fragile in appearance, Mildred, on the other hand, dark and commanding. The
sisters were greatly attached, and, being much alone, visited frequently at
their houses…” (Hemyng 7). The novel shows that when Mildred discovers that
Georgina or Lady Newberry has felt she was being treated unfairly by her
husband for refusing to pay for her clothing, she promises to pay for her dress.
The novel portrays the husbands of the two sisters in contrasting lights where
Newberry is the authoritative husband who monitors his wife’s deeds and
expenses, Mildred’s husband, “Roland never asks me what I do with my money”
(Hemyng 14), thus providing more autonomy to her. While squandering money is
not appreciable and the inability to procure a leisure item is not a dreadful
event, Victorian women, in general, had little access to or control of wealth.
This made them thoroughly dependent on their male relations to fulfill their
needs and desires. Like Darragh, in this case, Mildred employs her liberty and
access to funds to help her sister, because as a member of the same
socio-cultural space she can identify with her sister’s constraints.
A comparable pattern of emotional support and
companionship between women also emerges in other Victorian narratives. Beetham
Edward’s The White House by the Sea: A
Love Story, for instance, features Charleton Warne as a dedicated daughter
who sustains her ailing father in a dilapidated house in a desolate
neighbourhood. Although the primary narrative of the novel
traces the life and romantic relationship of Charleton or Chatty, it shows that
her desolate life is altered not just by the emergence of Lindsay as her potential
lover, but also by the active presence of her friend Jeanine. Chatty, the
author relates, in the absence of a female friend, sister or mother envisions
from the outset that she will have a sisterly relationship with Jeanine.
Indeed, the accidental encounter between two young women grows into an
immutable friendship governed by empathy, faith and verity. Although Mrs
Dunstan initially disapproves of her daughter’s friendship with Chatty because
of their class differences, eventually the two become each other’s closest
confidantes, unbiased critics, encouraging educators and untiring protectors.
Chatty declares: “She [Jeanine] was amiable, loving, and yielded to my wishes
whenever I expressed any, however much they might differ from her own; and, in
spite of the differences between us, we were sisters at once. Oh, how happy
this new love made me!” (Edwards 52).Chatty revels in her friendship with
Jeanine as much as she cogitates on her attraction towards Lindsay and occupies
half the narrative with her celebration of friendship while the other half with
her association with heterogeneous relations. The progress of the novel
underlines the importance and constancy of female friendship as opposed to the
irresolution of male romantic lovers as Chatty is betrayed by Lindsay and
assuaged by Jeanine on numerous occasions.
A
similar representation of supportive female companionship can be observed
between Helen Campbell and Mildred Effingham in Sarah Stickney Ellis’s Pique, where the former is the trusted adviser to the latter
from the very outset. The conflict of the novel revolves around the
protagonist, Mildred’s dilemma about her impending marriage to her betrothed,
Lord Alresford and her resentment towards Lady Catherine Neville, his thoughtful, soft
and principled ward, who ultimately becomes the chief bone of
contention between the husband and the wife. The distress and dissatisfaction
that Mildred suffers before and in the initial course of her marriage remain
veiled from her parents and Lord Alresford (until the very end of the
narrative), save Helen, who remains the sole companion to her throughout the
process. She is the only one who is in complete possession of knowledge about
her friend’s quandaries and she alternatively rebukes, appreciates, consoles, disparages
and appeases her friend. As a genuine well-wisher to Mildred and appropriate
arbiter of her life she advises her, “Then why marry him, Mildred? It would be
far more honourable and better principled to decline the engagement at once?”
(Ellis 5). Portrayed as a more judicious and perceptive woman, when Helen
realizes that the contract upon which the espousal was devised was too crucial
and delicate to be disturbed, she supports her friend and her marriage with
patience and conviction. She is quick to notice her tears before Helen enters
the altar for the wedding and as she prepares to depart as Lady Alresford after
her marriage, Mildred notes her nervousness. She reassures Mildred of her
future as a wife and praises her appearance as a bride “in tones of unfeigned
admiration” (Ellis 140), thus acting as the unwavering female companion to
Mildred.
In Mrs.
Albert Bradshaw’s novel Wife or Slave?
Mary Haldane, later Mrs Mary Ashely is depicted as the most resolute supporter
of her sister Lady St. Kestnor, who is illustrated as an amenable and deferential
wife who could be moulded to suit her husband, Hardress’s taste and purpose.
Hardress is an irritable person and his wife is an acquiescent receiver of his
opprobrium who is compelled to endure her husband’s courtesan. Mary criticizes this inimical domination of the husband
over Laura and protests against her diffidence towards him as she fails to
resist “the daily and almost hourly insults which he was offering to herself by
his attentions towards another woman” (Bradshaw 129). Unlike Laura, Mary
exclaims, “However you bear your husband's ill-humour and disagreeable speeches
so calmly I cannot imagine” (Bradshaw 23) and urges her sister “to assert your
independence a little more; you give in to him a great deal too much, and allow
yourself to fear him without any adequate reason for it” (Bradshaw 23). Mary
declares that she herself “should not hesitate to tell him a few plain truths
without stopping to garnish them either” (Bradshaw 23). The novel shows that
Laura depends on the counsel and cooperation of her sister whenever she is in
distress, and Mary, accordingly, delivers her duties towards her by adopting
desperate means like assuming the disguise of a maid, Hester Barnforth, to
rescue her sister from the cruelty of her husband.
This
kind of reliance on women, however, was not received candidly in the Victorian
period. Society regarded women to be too emotional and flimsy to have the
strength to form and endure lasting and forbearing friendships with other
women. Virginia Cary remarks, “The reason why female friendships are so often stable,
is obviously because they are carelessly formed” (160). Dinah Maria Mulock
Craik reproduces the assumption by stating “Women’s friendships are rarely or
never so firm, so just or so enduring, as those of men-when you can find them”
(152). The relationships that women formed within their sphere of existence,
the critics presumed were founded on bare utility or “mere idleness or from
that besoind’aimer which for, want of natural domestic ideas, makes this one a
temporary substitute” (Craik 153). These critics regarded female friendships
without consequence or scope of application in the lives of Victorian women.
Sharon
Marcus opines that the only reason Victorians approved of female relationships
was because they believed it would be advantageous for rendering patriarchal
services as helpmates of wives or mothers. She rectifies this stance by
asserting that female friendships “provided women with socially permissible opportunities
to engage in behaviours commonly seen as the monopoly of men: competition,
active choice, appreciation of female beauty, and struggles with religious
beliefs” (Marcus 26). It is due to this feeling of congruity that Mildredcan
declare her dissatisfaction with her marital arrangements with Lord Alresford
to Helen and the latter is able to appreciate the beauty of her friend in Pique, and Jeanine and Chatty divulge in
each other their deepest concerns and feelings. Again, in Best for Her, Dolly admires Darragh for qualities that were rarely
appreciated in Victorian women, her enthusiasm and “her zeal and love for her
country and her country-people” (Thomas 88). These female characters do not
assess their female friends or acquaintances on the basis of traditional
standards of femininity; rather they register their innate qualities and
endorse fellowship towards each other.
Representations
of such female friendship in Victorian fiction were likely to resonate more
strongly with female readers than with their male counterparts, particularly
within the framework of nineteenth-century gendered reading practices. As Kate
Flint argues in The Woman Reader
1837–1914, Victorian cultural discourse frequently constructed women as
readers predisposed to identify with female characters and domestic narratives.
Such imaginative identification enabled fiction to generate what may be
understood as affective communities among women readers—networks of emotional
and interpretive affiliation that extended beyond the private act of reading.
Expanding this perspective, Marisa Knox observes that “reading in the Victorian
period could and did unite women in imaginative affiliations that they
translated into creative, political, and professional action” (4). While these
affiliations occasionally manifested in public or reformist initiatives, their
significance also lay in the intimate realm of self-fashioning and emotional
sustenance.
Nevertheless,
it would be reductive to assume that Victorian male readers remained entirely
unaffected by such representations. The nineteenth century widely constructed
novel reading—particularly fiction addressing women’s concerns—as a feminised
activity and therefore unsuitable for male audiences. This gendered distinction
between “masculine” and “feminine” reading practices contributed to the
perception that male readers were largely disengaged from narratives centred on
women’s experiences. Yet the extensive portrayal of female relationships across
diverse literary forms makes it improbable for male readers to overlook these
themes. I propose that for male audiences, the depiction of female friendships
often served a different interpretive function. Within prevailing social
discourse, relationships between women were frequently trivialised as superficial
or emotionally excessive. This was coupled with the idea that “women are, from
their nature, more easily rendered jealous…. A woman is naturally jealous;
sometimes jealous of everyone- of her husband, her children, married and
unmarried, and of her friends. Jealous of all who have more wit or beauty,
enjoy more consideration” (Landriot100). Such assumptions framed female
friendships as unstable or potentially disruptive, particularly within the
domestic sphere, where the exchange of advice and emotional confidences between
women was sometimes imagined as a threat to marital harmony.
Furthermore,
the growing prominence of female relational networks appeared to challenge
dominant social structures organised around heterosexual marriage and male
fraternal bonds. While relationships between men and women were validated as
the norm, friendship between male members of the society was “ordinarily
thought to be the strongest attachment between men, as love is between men and
women” (Browne 237). According to a Victorian magazine, “Men of different
vocations, of different politics and various character, are made to fraternise
through a religious or sectarian creed; social intercourse often creates
friendship between men of opposite views in religion and politics” (“Notes and
Commentaries” 5). Such male friendships typically emerged from public
association rather than the intimate, affective connections often attributed to
relationships between women. Consequently, female friendships appeared to male
observers as socially inconsequential or ideologically disruptive, insofar as
they did not directly reinforce the male-dominated frameworks that structured
Victorian society.
The
representation of female friendships, therefore, roused divergent interpretive
responses of male and female readers. For female readers, such portrayals
underscored both the structural limitations imposed upon them and the necessity
of solidarity among women as a potential means of negotiating these
constraints. For male readers, however, the same narratives could signal a
perceived erosion of male authority, particularly in relation to legal and
economic privileges that had traditionally ensured their dominance. The growing
emphasis on cooperation and mutual support among women thus implicitly
challenged the assumption of men’s exclusive access to power within the social
and legal order. As a result, while the concerns and resolutions articulated
within these narratives may have appeared marginal within dominant male
discourse, they nevertheless articulated a set of issues and aspirations that
were central to the lived experiences of Victorian women.
The
persistent representation of female friendships in Victorian non-canonical
fiction thus reveals the importance of relational networks among women within a
social order that frequently limited their autonomy and access to power. While
canonical Victorian literature has often privileged narratives centred on
courtship and marriage, a considerable body of lesser-known fiction foregrounds
the emotional, practical, and moral significance of bonds between women. These
relationships function not merely as narrative embellishments but as crucial
mechanisms through which female characters negotiate the constraints imposed by
patriarchal structures, including economic dependency, restricted mobility, and
limited legal rights. As scholars such as Sharon Marcus have demonstrated,
relationships between women in the nineteenth century often created forms of
affiliation that could sustain identity, solidarity, and mutual support within
a society that privileged male authority and heterosexual domesticity. In this
context, Victorian non-canonical literature provides a valuable archive of
alternative social imaginaries in which women’s companionship, empathy, and
cooperation emerge as meaningful modes of resilience. By foregrounding these
relationships, such texts not only reflect the lived realities of women readers
but also subtly challenge dominant cultural narratives that relegated women to
isolated roles within the domestic sphere.
Works Cited
Blackstone,
William. Commentaries on the Laws of
Englandin Four Books: with an Analysis of the Work, vol. 1, New York, 1847.
Bradshaw,
Albert S. Wife or Slave? London, 1890, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/10621200.1800.emory.edu. Accessed 15 Feb., 2026.
Browne,
Junius Henri. “Women as Friends.” The
Galaxy A Magazine of Entertaining Reading,vol. 17, 1874, pp. 234-244.
Cary,
Virginia. Letters on Female Character
Addressed to a Young Lady, on the Death of Her Mother. Richmond, 1830.
Craik,
Dinah Maria Mulock. A Woman's Thoughts
about Women. New York, 1864.
Edwards,
Beetham. The White House by the Sea. London, 1882, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/09031973.1993.emory.edu.
Accessed 15 Feb., 2026.
Ellis,
Sarah Stickney. Pique: A Novel. London, 1869, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/11296882.2006.emory.edu. Accessed 29 Mar., 2026.
Hemyng,
Bracebridge. The Stockbroker’s Wife and Other Sensational Tales of the Stock
Exchange. London, 1885, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/12091634.2213.emory.edu.
Accessed 18 Mar., 2026.
Knox,
Marisa Palacios. Victorian Women and
Wayward Reading: Crises of Identification. Cambridge U P, 2020.
Landriot, Jean François Anne Thomas.Sins of the Tongue and Jealousy in Woman's Life. London, 1873.
Marcus,
Sharon. Between Women: Friendship,
Desire, and Marriage in Victorian England, Princeton UP, 2009.
Mink,
Joanna Stephens and Janet Doubler Ward. Introduction. Communication and Women's Friendships: Parallels and Intersections in
Literature and Life, by Mink and Ward. Bowling Green State University
Popular Press, 1993, pp. 1-8.
“Notes
and Commentaries, on A Voyage to China.” The
Southern Literary Messenger, vol. XIX, no. 1, 1853, pp. 1-9.
Patmore,
Coventry. The Angel in the House Together
with The Victories of Love. George Routledge, 1905.
Ruskin,
John. Works of John Ruskin: Sesame and
Lilies. Ethics of the dust. Crown of wild olive. Queen of the Air. New
York, 1886.
Thomas,
Annie. Best for Her: A Novel. London, 1882, Internet Archive,
https://archive.org/details/22592655.1981.emory.edu. Accessed 18 Mar., 2026.