Language In Clarissa, Evelina And Pride And Prejudice

"authority," Clarissa herself may not have had to suffer
as she does at the hands of her father and brother. She
tells Anna that her mother "never thought to oppose" her
husband, and though he and the rest of the family value
her, "she has purchased that value by her compliances"
(L13 82). Money, either married or inherited, means
power for men, while money for women, either through
marriage or through portions, means compliance and
subjugation to a "mild authority."
Mrs. Harlowe's realm as a mother is to keep the
house running smoothly, raise and educate her children.
Inheritance language choked the Harlowe household into
silence, and Mrs. Harlowe was among the first to feel its
disruptive power. Richardson hints at the decline in her
"domestic authority" in a letter to Aaron Hill:
Such a character as the Mother's, I have known:
an excellent woman, kept down by the violent
and overbearing temper of a Husband; and even
of a son joining with his Father; and neither
of them having half her own Sense, and no good
qualities at all. By Lovelace's sending his
unopen'd Letter to her, as you put it, and her
privately giving it to her daughter, I saw a