Nights at the Circus: Marriage, Prostitution and Romance

Nights at the Circus is the sort of book, I think, that gets better the more you read it. I’m currently going through it for the second time and picking up on more than I missed the first time, however it’s so dense I’m not yet sure what to say about it. So, I’m going to narrowly focus on one example of the humorous social commentary that pops up in Carter’s writing. The idea of marriage as analogous to prostitution comes up at the beginning of the novel, with the following quotes from Lizzie.

“’Manners in the New World are considerably more elastic than they are in the old, as you’ll be pleased to find, ma’am,’ said Walser evenly. ‘And I myself have known some pretty decent whores, some damn’ fine women, indeed, whom any man might have been proud to marry.’
‘Marriage? Pah!’ snapped Lizzie in a pet. ‘Out of the frying pan into the fire! What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many? No different! D’you think a decent whore’d be proud to marry you, young man? Eh?’” (21)

“’So she comes into thirty thousand a year, a place up in Yorkshire, another in Scotland, and a very nice house in Eaton Square, into the bargain. And our little duck would have been sitting pretty except she was sentimental soul and grieved a good deal over the departed as, ever the optimist, she’d counted on a long and happy life with the old bugger.’
‘Only a whore,’ opined Lizzie with sudden force, ‘could hope for so much from marriage.’” (51)

Lizzie, Fevver’s foster mother and an ex-prostitute with humanitarian interests, is the mouthpiece for these views. She views marriage as a form of prostitution that is limiting to women. The two ideas- prostitution and marriage- exist on some sort of spectrum, with prostitution on the one end, and marriage on the other. The idea behind both seems to be that women are paid for their sexual favours, so that women benefit from the exchange in a financial sense, and men benefit from the sexual access of the woman.

Prostitution is portrayed in both Geek Love and Nights at the Circus as a potentially liberating act for women, as a means of controlling both their bodily autonomy and their monetary income independent of a male figurehead. It’s an avenue that is exclusively available to women, as their sexuality operates as an endless resource for which there is endless demand. It is perhaps one of the few resources that women have for which there is a considerable market value, one of the few places that women can call the shots. Marriage on the other hand is a complex and often patriarchal institution that puts women at a disadvantage and robs them of the ability to control their own bodies. It is even portrayed as a business transaction between two men, as Arty makes a deal with the Bagman so that he can marry the twins (rape them), in an attempt to regain control over the twin’s sexuality. He is empowered to do this for no evident virtue of character, he simply has implicit permission to regulate the sexual activities of his sisters.

The whores of Nights at the Circus operate their own business, make enough money to eventually retire from prostitution and begin legitimate businesses without help from men (49-50). All of the retired prostitutes do quite well for themselves, with one exception:

“But, as for our Jenny, although she was the prettiest and best-hearted harlot as ever trod Piccadilly, she had no special talent to put to work for her and never saved a penny but give it all to beggars. Her sole capitol was her skin alone...” (50)

This particular prostitute ends up twice married to wealthy men, both of whom seem doomed to die and leave her with all of their money. These lines are reminiscent of Miss Lick’s mission in Geek Love, touching upon the notion of beauty as a means of monetary gain but also exploitation. Both novels seem to be edging towards the idea that women need to have more going for them, to be independently talented; have innate value that goes beyond men’s interest in them as sex objects. Jenny’s folly, according to Lizzie, is her romanticism and love for these men. In her eyes marriage is a form of prostitution, and love as no place in the exchange of sexual services for goods. Nights at the Circus stuck out to me as a novel about sisterhood and female empowerment, and this is reflected in it’s portrayal of marriage and especially Lizzie’s character.

Geek Love, to my memory, has no really positive portrayal of romantic or sexual relationships- the marriage of the Binewski’s is the closest thing, but it is a deeply disturbing relationship. However, the connection between Walser and Fevvers renews the hope of the possibility of a healthy relationship between a man and a woman. Their sexual relationship leads to the “reconstructing” or rebirth (it is described as a hatching multiple times) of Walser’s self (348), which involves the relinquishing of the egocentric performance of his life. The institution of marriage is disparaged, but love (or good sex?) is potentially transforming for both genders.