Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

interfere with his main estate settlement and therefore,
though it was "unconformable," or not in line with
eighteenth-century penchant for strict settlement for
realty, Grandfather Harlowe' s will was legal and binding.
His sons and grandson, however, were modern eighteenth-
century men. They, therefore, opposed the elder
Harlowe' s refusal to entirely give up past practices.
Private wills meant private betrayal in the form of
"surprise" giving, and, in the Harlowes' case, the chance
of public embarrassment. As Anna Howe reminds Clarissa,
"People, I have heard you say, who affect secrets always
excite curiosity" (L10 70) .
Clarissa has chosen to live a single life before the
novel begins (L438 1268). Her grandfatherf s bequest
would give her enough income to remain single. However,
as Miguel Suarez observes, "[a]utonomous adulthood, the
freedom to choose and act in a unfettered way, is a
masculine entitlement only" (80). Clarissa writes her
uncle John that by her offering to "engage not to marry
at all," she is disgraced, sequestered from company and
banished from her mother and father (L32.l 149) . In the
same letter, Clarissa gives a chilling account of
marriage: "To be given up to a strange man; to be
engrafted into a strange family; to give up her very