Sibling Rivalry, (Dis)Inheritance and Politics in Aphra Behn’s The Younger Brother and Susanna Centlivre’s The Artifice

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This well-researched and engaging article sheds light on the political viewpoints of Aphra Behn and Susanna Centlivre through their treatment of younger and elder sons in the inheritance plot. The author's argument that the reasons for disinheritance in each play are political rather than emotional or financial is convincingly argued and supported by a range of historical, legal, and dramatic evidence from the period discussed. The article was clear in its reasoning for Behn‘s and Centlivre‘s political treatment of disinheritance, yet the conclusion could be more assertive in its reflection on what these insights show about inheritance plots in drama more broadly. For example, is the author suggesting that the inheritance plot and its treatment in comedies can provide insight into different playwrights‘ political leanings due to how treatment of the same issues varies, depending on the playwright? Such a perspective is valuable because existing research has focused more on the role inheritance plays in familial relationships, gender inequality, and contract theory in the marriage plot and at times, gives the impression that there was a consensus in comedy when it came to sympathising with the younger brother, for example, or, the perception that inheritance plots are socially conservative, preserving wealth in aristocratic families. Perhaps this point could be stated more explicitly in the conclusion. Similarly, does this analysis of Behn‘s The Younger Brother mean that this play could be firmly grouped with The Roundheads, The City Heiress, and The Lucky Chance in future collections and discussions of Behn‘s works because of its political themes in the inheritance plot?

The section outlining the evidence to support that The Younger Brother was composed in the 1680s on page 2 would benefit from a more specific sentence outlining for the reader why these details are relevant to the argument being made about inheritance (its political angle). At present, the article states that it is relevant to „the understanding of how the elder son in The Younger Brother could have been disinherited and what Sir Rowland‘s reasons for such a drastic punishment might have been.“ Some reference to the political significance of the 1680s here for Behn would make the inclusion of the section clearer. This reader felt that perhaps some of this material would be better placed in the section on page 5. However, the addition of a clarifying sentence to the existing section would also remedy this and this is left to the author‘s discretion.  

Some mention of existing scholarship on heiresses in comedy could be incorporated into the section on women and inheritance, such as Douglas Canfield's Tricksters and Estates (1997), in which Canfield argues that heiresses serve to pass on wealth and resolve difficulties in the financial plot (see page 249). Derek Hughes argues that heiresses are“the sources of property and moral influence in a nominally patriarchal society “ in English Drama (Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 408-9. Misty Anderson's Female Playwrights and Eighteenth-Century Comedy: Negotiating Marriage on the London Stage (2002) may also be a useful reference in relation to Centlivre.

For the argument on page 6 section 5, it would be worth mentioning that the age of the heiress was a factor in whether she had complete access to her wealth-with some plots taking place just before the heiress can access her fortune (as is the case for Miranda in Centlivre‘s The Busybody) In some plays, the heroine must wait until she turns 21.

It would be worth considering to what extent the changes in the comic landscape of the 1690s may have affected Gildon‘s resolution of the inheritance conflict in The Younger Brother in section 4 on p. 6.

The conclusion may benefit from more clearly articulating the significance of the author's findings to the study of inheritance and attitudes toward inheritance in 17th and 18th-century comedy.  The relationship between the State and the family came across clearly throughout the article, so perhaps reflecting on the connection between the inheritance plot and authority (whether political or familial or both) as a common connection across the Restoration and early eighteenth century. Answering the question of why Centlivre and Behn tackle this subject in their later works would be a useful addition to the conclusion. In the case of Behn the backdrop of the Exclusion Crisis mentioned in the article seems to explain this, but what may have prompted Centlivre to look at inheritance conflict between brothers and fathers at the time The Artifice was written? 

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable suggestions for improving the paper and clarifying the argument. I tried to work these suggestions into the text by adding and rewriting several passages.

I am not sure whether my findings as regards The Younger Brother and The Artifice could be generalized for inheritance plots more broadly. As I say in the (new) Conclusion, threats of disinheritance in the comedies of the time have a variety of reasons, e.g., often a son’s refusal to marry according to the father’s wishes, or his dissoluteness. And although, as I show in the paper, various pamphlets prove that divergent political opinions could play a role in a father’s decision to disinherit a son, this is by no means so in every play dealing with inheritance. I found it quite remarkable that 2 women should have thematized this nexus of inheritance and politics. I have, however, drawn attention to Canfield’s classification of social comedies: Both The Younger Brother and The Artifice fit into his category of comedies in which “the threat to be socialized is … political”. Canfield does not discuss either play, but, for instance, The Roundheads, yet the appropriateness of his classification for the 2 plays under discussion seems striking to, as I argue in the new Conclusion. I hope that this helps to put the two comedies into an appropriate context.

I think that – as far as the inheritance plot is concerned -Behn’s as well as Centlivre’s comedy is socially conservative, in spite of the fact that one dramatist was a Tory and the other a Whig. Both plays are set among the gentry and confirm social hierarchies, even as they give the estate and the social prestige and influence connected with landownership to the character whose political opinion they approve. I have included a reference to this effect in the new Conclusion. There, I also put in a reference to Canfield’s theory that the heiress’s dowry helps to build estates, pointing out, however, that both Behn and Centlivre see to it that the grooms have already come into possession of the estate (or are the official heirs), so that their brides’ portions will increase the couple’s wealth but not be instrumental to the social position of the protagonist. Hughes’s reference to heiresses as sources of property and moral influence concerns Farquar’s plays in particular, so I refrained from quoting him to avoid explanations about the relationship of Behn, Farquhar and Centlivre. I now mention Anderson in connection with Centlivre criticism in the new Conclusion.

The Younger Brother should certainly be grouped with The Roundheads, The City-Heiress and The Luckey Chance. I now mention these three plays explicitly on p. 2 and suggest in the new Conclusion that in The Younger Brother Behn chose “a new angle from which to articulate her anti-Whig propaganda of the 1680s” (which again links her last play to these better-known examples of her Tory propaganda). The problem for scholars, I think, has been that  Gildon rewrote (parts of) Behn’s manuscript, and it is not clear how much in fact he changed. In the new edition of Behn’s Works for CUP (referenced in a footnote on p. 2) I went into more detail about the evidence of Behn’s own hand. I am quite certain that Sir Merlin was meant to be a Whig and admirer of Cromwell – as some sentences Gildon obviously overlooked prove.

As you suggested, I added a sentence on p. 3, explaining that the composition in the 1680s is important for a political reading of the play. I also mention the Exclusion Crisis and the Whig attempt to prevent the ascension of James to the throne. On p. 6 I also added a sentence explaining that Sir Merlin’s admiration for Cromwell would have confirmed the worst Tory fears about the Whigs wishing to turn England into a republic again.

In chapter 5 (on women) I included a passage about the power of fathers and guardians as regards portions – at least until the women came of age at 21, as you reminded me.  Erickson, however, suggests that within the upper classes the pressure on daughters might have been greater than in the middle and lower ranks. Playwrights, I added on p. 6, seem to have capitalized on the dramatic potential of blocking fathers and guardians who keep their wards under tutelage (in Miranda’s case in The Busie Body even to the age of 25).

On p. 6 I inserted a sentence about the taste for reformed comedy in the 1690s, which might explain Gildon’s conciliatory resolution to the sibling conflict.

As you advised, I rewrote the Conclusion, largely leaving out lengthy references to the inheritance of women and concentrating on the nexus between the inheritance plot and politics as the main point of my paper. The inheritance conflict in both plays, I added, finds a counterpart in the struggle about who should ‘inherit’ the crown of England (James II, his protestant daughter and son-in-law, or Charles’ illegitimate son Monmouth in the 1680s, and the Hanovarian dynasty or the Stuarts at Centlivre’s time ; the Atterbury plot which might have inspired Centlivre is also mentioned on p. 7).

It is difficult to know what may have prompted the playwrights to take up the subject. In Behn’s case, I think, she just continued to attack the Whigs, as she had done in several plays of the 1680s; she found a new perspective on the issue in the conflict between 2 siblings for an inheritance. Centlivre in many plays attacked the Tories/Jacobites and may have been inspired by the Atterbury plot to use the sibling conflict in The Artifice to voice her support for the Hanovarians – a guess I also hazard in the new Conclusion.

Reviewer 2 Report

This is an interesting article on Behn's and Centrlivre's treatment of inheritance in their comedies. The article is right to put these two neglected plays together, which complement each other in the ways they present Tory fathers disinheriting (and reinstating) their sons. Moreover, the essay considers too an important element of both plays: i.e. the ways women figure in these kinds of debates. 

The article's structure and argumentation are mostly clear and logical, and the conclusions it draws are compelling. However, the author should rethink the conclusion, which feels unbalanced given its focus on female inheritance. The article is principally about male inheritance, and the conclusion currently feels detached from this chief concern. A refocus would help tie the final part to the whole.

The essay manages to contextualize both plays' respective treatment of inheritance by references to contemporary sources in other areas (the law; theology) but some of its historical citations aren't all that scholarly: Britannia is not a valid reference - we need proper, peer-reviewed historical studies to support historical claims.

The author might also consider providing a review of the existing scholarship relating to these plays; we don't really have here a clear sense of how this essay fits with standard interpretations or readings, and consequently it isn't clear what it original about it. 

One final point: the author might consider stating more clearly what are the stakes of this argument. Much of the essay is descriptive - justifiably, given that the plots will be known only to a few readers - but as a result, it isn't always clear exactly what the essay is contributing to debates about the plays. Why is this essay necessary? Why should we consider the these plays in relation to inheritance? What does it enable us to see that ignoring this theme would obscure? The essay does provide answers to these and related questions, but the author might put them front and centre more explicitly. 

The quality of English is good, although there are some slips in grammar and spelling which need addressing: 

l. 128: 'how' to 'about how'

l. 254 'welome' to 'welcomed'

l. 355 'half' to 'halve'

And some of the quotations (ll. 168-72) need to be fully integrated into the paragraph. 

Author Response

Thank you for the valuable suggestions for improving the paper.

I have rewritten the Conclusion, largely removing remarks about female inheritance which, as you pointed out, is not the main focus of my paper. Instead, I concentrated on the nexus between the inheritance plot and contemporary politics.

I no longer cite Britannica, but The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

In the new Conclusion, I also included a brief review of existing scholarship relating to the two plays discussed, as you advised.  Although there are many studies on Behn and Centlivre, The Younger Brother and The Artifice have been strikingly neglected, and so has the nexus between (dis)inheritance and (party-)politics.  In the case of The Younger Brother, the reason for neglecting the play is probably that it is not clear how much Gildon changed in Behn’s original manuscript. In vol. 4 of the new CUP edition of Behn’s Works (referenced in a footnote on p. 2) I go into more detail about evidence of Behn’s hand in The Younger Brother and try to reconstruct her political message. I am quite certain that Sir Merlin was meant to be a Whig and admirer of Cromwell – as some sentences Gildon obviously overlooked prove, but a detailed explanation would have gone beyond the scope of this paper. As far as Centlivre is concerned, scholars tend to concentrate on her better-known plays, her depiction of marriage and her use of Locke’s contract theory, as I point out in the brief review. I also say explicitly that the topic of (male) inheritance and the political reading it challenges has not been analyzed before.

In the new Conclusion I also emphasize that what makes The Younger Brother and The Artifice particularly interesting is the way in which the struggle of two siblings for an estate reverberates not only with contemporary moral and political discourses about (dis)inheritance, but also finds a parallel in historical events which may have inspired the two dramatists: in the 1680s, the succession to the throne was contested between James, Duke of York, his Protestant  daughter and son-in-law, and the Duke of Monmouth, Charles’s illegitimate son and hence James’s nephew. By rewarding the Tory son with the estate and the heiress, Behn also implicitly voiced her support for the future James II, whom the court party recognized as the legitimate heir apparent. In the controversy of whether the Protestant Hanovarians or the Catholic Stuarts were the legitimate claimants to the throne,  Centlivre, by restoring the estate to the Whig elder brother, a declared enemy of the Jacobites, positioned herself on the side of the new dynasty. In the paper I am not trying to claim that every inheritance plot in fact has a (party-) political agenda, but that readers should be open to the possibility that such supposedly ‘private’ conflicts might also have a political significance.

I am sorry for the grammatical slips, which have been corrected. I have tried to integrate the quotations in II into the paragraph (the problem is, that the first sentence requires a question mark; a colon would make the connection even clearer.)