Fowles Social

John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman examines the social conventions in the 19th century by exploring ideas of sexual repression, class structures and the moral responsibilities that accompany it.
Women of the middle and upper classes were sexually ignorant before marriage. In the novel, we learn from Grogan that at least one couple he knew thought that the navel was the point of entry for sex. Ernestina, who is typical of the time, will not even allow herself to look at her own naked body, or permit Charles to touch her except for the chastest of kisses on the cheek, forehead or hand.
The comparison between the women: Mary, Sarah and Ernestina, exemplifies the accepted behaviour of women according to their social class. The women of the middle to upper class like Ernestina; would not be allowed any contact before the engagement was announced with a man, without the presence of a female chaperone. Aunt Tranter is always near at hand even after Tina and Charles are engaged. There would not be any real education about what to expect after marriage, either. Women would most likely be counselled to "endure the inevitable" and regard it as their "duty" to submit to the husband's carnal desires. In a society where a wife became, literally, a chattel of the husband, her property becoming his automatically upon marriage, we can not expect any real assertive behaviour on the part of the wife. Women were subordinate to their husbands - the marriage service still contained the words "to obey". “He did not like her when she was wilful; it contrasted too strongly with her elaborate clothes, all designed to show a total inadequacy outside the domestic interior.” Charles’s view of how his wife-to-be should behave is exemplified here. It is evident that he subscribes at least partially to the values of the age where women were expected to be obedient and acquiescent.
According to Victorian social norms, Enjoyment of sex was an indication of a loose moral character, exemplified in Ernestina’s thoughts. “She imagined herself for a truly sinful moment as someone wicked – A dancer, an actress.” Respectable women would never dream of indulging themselves in so profane a pastime as sexual pleasure. This is further explored by Fowles through the character of Sarah, who was known as “tragedy” and “French Lieutenant’s Whore” because she, presumably, chased after the French sailor to satisfy her sexual desire. “I wish to be what I am, not what a husband, however kind, however indulgent, must expect me to become in marriage.” In this quotation, Sarah voices her independence and her refusal to be contained by Victorian morality. The lower orders were much more sexually active, as demonstrated by Mary. Mary was thrown out of Poulteney’s house because she kissed a groom. The prostitute Sarah has no inhibitions and few illusions about the realities of life. It is only the more "refined" species of society who have to observe the taboos and keep to the rules. The higher up the social scale, the more leeway a woman had to break the rules, because “the lower classes are not so scrupulous about appearances” as the middle and upper class were.
Gentlemen, on the other hand, were in the fortunate position of being able to indulge their instincts with women of a certain sort. Prostitution was rife at the time the novel is set. Clubs like the Terpsichore certainly existed, where gentlemen could be entertained with sexual shows and intercourse, if they wished. For men of the aristocrat like Charles, behaving like a Gentleman was the convention. He is characteristic of the leisured class. He has never worked, occupies his time with palaeontology and travel, and waits to inherit substantial wealth from an unmarried uncle. The thought of running a business was unheard of by a gentleman and Charles certainly fails the description of a Victorian gentleman as such that he has to sign the breach of promise papers.
Also Fowles uses an overtly twentieth-century perspective to critique this representation of Victorian England where duty and conformity take precedence over kindness and honesty. The belief that one should adhere to convention is put into question by the hypocrisy of many of the main characters. Apart from Sarah, who is depicted as attempting to live by her own codes of behaviour rather than society’s, others, such as Charles, Mrs Poulteney and Ernestina, are more concerned about how they appear to the outside world than in acting on their desires. The sense of duty, which in some measure is shown to be admirable, has become twisted as duty becomes more valued than the Christian ethos that informs it. It is suggested that Poulteney takes in Sarah because it was her duty to mend Sarah’s ways, and to support the common belief that “among her own class, a very limited circle, she was renowned for her charity. And if you had disputed that reputation, your opponents would have produced an incontrovertible piece of evidence: had not dear, kind Mrs. Poulteney taken in the French Lieutenant’s Woman?” Fowles mentions that “it is no wonder that duty has become such a key concept in our understanding of the Victorian age.” He quotes George Eliot’s famous epigram: “God is inconceivable, immortality is unbelievable, but duty is peremptory and absolute” to emphasise the importance of duty in the Victorian age. And then further supports it with an epigraph from A. H. Clough’s “Duty”
With the form conforming duly,
Senseless what it meaneth truly,
Go to church—the world require you,
To balls—the world require you too,
And marry—papa and mama desire you,
And your sisters and schoolfellows do.

Fowles suggests that that Charles, Mrs Poulteney and Ernestina “had allowed their windows on reality to become smeared by convention, religion, social stagnation” and when Charles finally decides to go against society’s conventions he is stripped of his identity as a gentleman and society refuses to accept him.