Bernadette Kelly

Link to Abstract

Dianne Dugaw’s ballad collection archives an array of women who dress in masculine clothing to enlist in the military or join a sailing crew. While the trope was a popular form of entertainment in ballads and other fictionalized accounts, historical records of actual women disguising themselves also exist and acted as inspiration (Dugaw, 46). ¹ In her analysis of the warrior women ballads, Dugaw focuses on how “the Female Warrior motif exposes long-standing cultural connections between ideas about gender and notions of heroism, showing how the two really contribute to and create each other” (Dugaw, xiii). As Dugaw suggests, heroism is often associated with masculinity and the ballads display that association as the women warriors cross-dress to perform their brave adventures. However, while feminine heroism may look different outside of the ballad due to patriarchal control, women certainly manage to be heroic, even if they never cross-dress. Many early modern women managed to subvert the gender- power dynamic and add to the investigation started in the ballad collection. 

The warrior women ballads are wonderful artifacts that depict strong female characters in their content, but connections to their historical context push these depictions further. The warrior women usurp masculine authority, which is exciting in itself, but knowing what the feminine experience was during the time period reveals the level of their usurpation. We can examine the lives of women who subverted social norms, even if they did not go to war, to gain a representation of how women could control their lives without cross-dressing. Here, I will focus on the life of Mary Ann Matthews Wrighten Pownall; she was a singer/actress who performed ballads on stage in both England and America. Mrs. Wrighten’s story ² is an example of how a woman in the Eighteenth Century could take control of her romantic as well as professional life by removing herself from her marriage (with a certain amount of backlash from the public). I first noticed Mrs. Wrighten’s name at the top of “The Female Captain” ³ while reading Dugaw’s catalogue. In place of the usual tune listing on the ballad, the text simply says “Sung by Mrs. Wrighten” (Catalogue, 870). In the catalogue notes, Dugaw describes Mrs. Wrighten’s biographical actions as a real woman warrior:

According to one copy (British Union Catalogue, II, 966) the piece was ‘sung by Mrs. Wrighten. The words by Mr. Wrighten.’ James Wrighten was the prompter to the Theatres Royal Drury Lane and the Haymarket. (See Thespian Dictionary, ‘Wrighten.’) His wife, Mary Ann Matthews Wrighten Pownall, left him and went to America in 1792.

(Catalogue, 870)

Born in 1751 (or 1756, according to her death certificate), Mrs. Wrighten married her first husband Mr. James Wrighten in approximately 1769 (Highfill, 288). ⁴ Around 1785 four ballads were published as being ‘composed and sung’ by Mrs. Wrighten (Highfill, 290). As a famous performer in England and America, a lot of the information compiled about Mrs. Wrighten is found in gossip columns or performance reviews. Her fame is perhaps the reason that her life story has been recovered by scholars.

On the website Early American Actresses compiled and run by Dr. M. Susan Anthony, a drama scholar, who attributes four specific ballads to Mrs. Wrighten, including “Kiss Me Now or Never,” “Kisses Sued For,” “The Primrose Girl,” “Jemmy of the Glen.” Many of the ballads certainly have her listed as a performer which could have helped to sell the ballads or tickets to the performance. According to M.S. Anthony, Mrs. Wrighten left her first husband to travel to America under the surname of her second husband, Pownall. She was born as a Matthews, married and divorced Wrighten, and re-married a man named Hugh Pownall (Anthony, 405). Based on this history of marriage and travel, we begin to compile evidence that Mrs. Wrighten took control of her life in a way that was similar to the heroines in the warrior women ballads, even if she never dressed in men’s clothing. 

Returning to “The Female Captain,” the ballad sung by Mrs. Wrighten, the women do not fully cross-dress: the ballad seems designed more as war propaganda than as a salacious fictional tale about women who go to war as men. The ballad is narrated by a group of women who itemize various ways to manipulate men into going to war, which range from enforcing a period of abstinence ⁵. to the women dressing as men to overtake their social position as warriors. The final threat is that the women may remain in men’s clothing forever. Although the ballad has a silly tone, the female narrators subvert masculine power with their threats. By controlling their sexuality and gender performance, the female speakers of the ballad use bodily autonomy to enforce their expectation that men should go fight in the war. During the early modern time period, women did have various ways that they could hold power beyond abstaining from sex. For instance, widows holding their inheritance from their late husband could control her economic independence as long as they did not remarry (Fraser, 93). However, the law recognized women as their husband’s property, so once they married (or remarried) their husband would control their holdings (Fraser). The female speakers are women who stepped out of the control of a generally patriarchal society with the impending idea of becoming the controlling force. 

Mrs. Wrighten’s move to leave her husband was nothing short of power subversion similar to that of the female speakers in “The Female Captain.” In fact, while authorship for the ballad is attributed to her husband, Mrs. Wrighten’s decision to divorce her husband and manage her own career thematically follows the threat of a female usurping masculine power. Since her legal standing made her little more than a subsidiary of her husband, all of her pay from performing went to him and she had little input over financial affairs. There is a full account of the Wrighten divorce in A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London: 1660-1800, which highlights Mrs. Wrighten’s legal and financial insecurity. After Mr. Wrighten threw Mrs. Wrighten out of the house, separating her from her two daughters, she returned to her parents’ home and her father obtained a bill of divorce for her (Highfill, 291). The fact that her father obtained the bill of divorce for her speaks to the lack of female power in matters of the law, and further completes the circle of commercialization that many brides represented (Fraser). Their father would give them away with a dowry, as women were viewed as a financial burden on their families. The transactional exchange implies that the husbands were really helping a daughter’s parents by taking her off their hands (Wiltenburg). In the case of Mrs. Wrighten, we see her pay for, not only her own exchange value, but for her daughters as well. After the divorce, Mrs. Wrighten paid her ex-husband a settlement in order to secure his permission to take their two daughters with her to America where she trained them as actresses (Anthony, 409). While placing a value on a human being is both immoral and distasteful, Mrs. Wrighten’s taking part in the generally masculine transaction related to the marriage market is another sign of her gaining a freedom. Despite the patriarchalism of the legal dealings, Mrs. Wrighten’s decision to return home is reminiscent of the ultimatums and final resolution modeled in the ballad; if her husband could have met her expectations and treated her as a partner, she would not have remove herself from the situation. 

As Mrs. Wrighten left England abruptly under her new married name of Pownall, rumors circulated about her departure and divorce. To dispel the gossip, Mrs. Wrighten wrote An Apology for the Life and Conduct of Mrs. Mary Ann Wrighten (published between 1786-1792). Her apology, which acts more as a defense, ⁶ is offered more to London society for not abiding by social law than to Mr. Wrighten. The subtitle sets the tone for the book:

late a favourite actress and singer of Drury-Lane Theatre and Vauxhall Gardens, written by herself, and dedicated to her husband, John Wrighten of the same theatre, In Consequence of his Persecution of her for several Years past.

(Wrighten)

Wrighten establishes herself within her career as a performer in a reputable theatre which improves her ethos. She grounds the pamphlet as a ‘consequence,’ giving the work a twist of morality while positioning herself as the wronged party. Mrs. Wrighten steadfastly claims that her husband’s past treatment of her is to blame for the divorce—her persecution. While Mrs. Wrighten uses the term ‘apology,’ she does not necessarily imply the modern connotation of the word meaning an explanation of an action that may have hurt someone’s feelings with an expression of regret (OED). The usage of ‘apology’ that seems more likely and fitting is “the pleading off from a charge or imputation, whether expressed, implied, or only conceived as possible; defense of a person, or vindication of an institution, etc., from accusation or aspersion (1533-1850)” (OED). A canonical example of a protofeminist apology is Amelia Lanver’s “Eve’s Apology in Defense of Women” from Salve Deus Rex Judæorum which defends Eve’s actions during the biblical Fall of mankind. Similarly, Mrs. Wrighten’s Apology defends her choice to file for divorce. To strengthen the legitimacy and truth of her Apology, Mrs. Wrighten likens her pamphlet to a child: “He is the natural father of this pamphlet, lawfully begotten on the body of his wife. It has gone its full time, and having extorted it from its mother by a peremptory mandamus, she now lays it affectionately at his feet” (Apology, IV-V). They created their failed marriage and the consequences together, and she will now bequeath the true accounting of their divorce to him and the rest of the world. However, as Mrs. Wrighten attributes the power of procreation to the wife, she gives herself the power of building and delivering their divorce to the public. 

Mrs. Wrighten further cements the righteousness of her decision by placing a quote from Emilia in Othello on the title page. Othello is ripe with marital issues. Emilia is married to Iago, the villain of the play, who convinces Emilia to steal Desdemona’s handkerchief to propel Iago’s plot to convince Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful. Emilia’s action is small, but allows Iago’s plan to succeed and the play ends in tragedy. The quote is from after Othello murders Desdemona, and Emilia realizes how her husband has betrayed her into becoming an accomplice:

If wives do fall, it is their husbands faults
And have they not affections as men have?
Then let ‘em use us well, else let ‘em know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us to.

(Wrighten)

Mrs. Wrighten likens herself to Emilia in her Apology as a defense. If she did commit any crimes within the bounds of marriage, she learned them from her husband. She felt the need to defend herself because a woman’s rebellion against her husband was viewed as a small mark of treason against her wedding vows and the patriarchal system (Dolan, 153). Mrs. Wrighten lays charges against Mr. Wrighten such as going to brothels and giving her a venereal disease, as well as being abusive. She is not implying that she committed those exact crimes, but that he is where she learned to be unfaithful to her marriage vows. She includes Emilia’s quote in her defense because women were not granted the same amount of freedom as men within marriage. If Mrs. Wrighten feels that she can relate to Emilia’s situation, she positions Mr. Wrighten as Iago. While her filing for divorce may be seen as immoral, as Emilia’s betrayal of Desdemona was wrong, their husbands’ actions far outweigh their own. 

In the Apology, we see evidence that Mrs. Wrighten believed she would be a part of a companionate marriage, which was becoming more common across economic classes. As the aristocracy began to crumble and the merchant middle class began to build their own infrastructure, more couples were allowed to marry for love instead of a good match (Wiltenburg, 11) ⁷

Some members of the aristocracy married into the merchant class for money as their inheritances ran out, but as commerce ran rampant (thanks to colonialism and industrialization), a young couple could make a living for themselves as Mrs. Wrighten thought. Thus, marriages came to have new expectations: 

If her husband had acted by her as she submits he ought to have done, she would never have left him but in death. The blissful union of hearts dissolved; discord and confusion prevail between them ; and far as she is now from him, she feels a due concern for his subversion of the best ends of marriage— namely to make life glide smoothly on ; to soften a husband’s care, to protect the weakness of a wife; to preserve unmelted the cement of friendship, and every thing else that heaven can bestow on mortal beings.

(Apology, VI-VII)

At the beginning of this quote, we see Mrs. Wrighten’s statement that she expected different behavior from her husband. She ‘submits’ that he ‘ought to have’ behaved differently. While using terminology that feeds into gender norms such as implying her submission and the ‘weakness of a wife,’ she accuses him of subverting the ‘best ends of marriage.’ Her rhetoric presents her as the wronged party to defend herself against public scrutiny by playing into social gender norms. She thought they would build a life as partners and friends within the gender hierarchy. By explaining her expectations of marriage that fall within the patriarchal system, Mrs Wrighten can appease her audience. Like the female speakers in “The Female Captain,” who are trying to convince men to perform their service to their country, Mrs. Wrighten’s Apology could be read as a guide for how Mr. Wrighten failed in his duties as a husband. 

The strong actions taken and the words stated by Mrs. Wrighten shows a historical figure who could have influenced or been influenced by the warrior women ballads. Although she never cross-dresses, Mrs. Wrighten changes her identity and plays with gender norms to defend her reputation, take leave of an unhappy marriage, and begin a new life in America for herself and her daughters. As stated in the ballad transcribed and referenced below, female liberty is regained. ⁸ “To arms then, ye fair ones, and let the world see, / When husbands are tyrants, their wives will be free (Female Liberty Regained). In this ballad, there is also not cross-dressing, but women are called to arms for their own battle for agency.

Female Liberty Regained
Sung by Mrs. Wrighten, at Vauxhall
Tho’ man has long boasted an absolute sway,
While woman’s hard fate was love, honour, obey;
At length over wedlock fair Liberty dawns,
And lords of creation must pull in their horns;
For Hymen among ye proclaims his desire,
When husbands are tyrants, their wives will be free.
Away from your doubts, your surmises, and fears,
‘Tis Venus beats up for her gay volunteers;
Enlist at her banner, you’ll vanquish at ease.
And make of your husbands what creatures you please;
To arms then, ye fair ones, and let the world see,
When husbands are tyrants, their wives will be free.
The rights of your sex would you e’er see restor’d,
Your tongues should be us’d as a two-edged sword;
That ear piercing weapon each husband must dread,
Who thinks on the marks won may place on his head:
Then wisely unite, till men all agree,
That women, dear women, shall ever be free.
No more shall the wife, as meek as a lamb,
Be subject to, Zounds ! Do you know who I am?
Domestic politeness shall flourish again,
When women take courage to govern the men:
Then stand to your charter, and let the world see,
Tho’ husbands are tyrants, their wives will be free.

Works Cited

Anthony, M. Susan. “Not a “Whorish Actress”: Celebrity and the Early American Stage.” The Journal of American Culture, vol. 38, no. 4, 2015, pp. 401-412. ProQuest.

Baldwin, Olive, and Thelma Wilson. “Wrighten [other married name Pownall], Mary Ann [née Mary Matthews] (1751–1796), singer and actress.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  May 24, 2008. Oxford University Press.

Dolan, Frances E. Ballads and Broadsides in Britain, 1500-1800. “‘Tracking the Petty Traitor across Genres.” Edited by Anita Guerrini and Patricia Fumerton, Routledge, pp. 149-171, 2016.

Dugaw, Dianne. A Catalogue and Collection of Anglo- American Female Warrior Ballads. University of California, 1982.

—. Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650-1850. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

— “Theorizing Orality and Performance in Literary Anecdote and History: Boswell’s Diaries.” Oral Tradition, vol. 24 no. 2, 2009. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/ort.0.0045.

Fraser, Antonia. The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England. London: 

Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984. Print.

Highfill, Philip H., et al. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London: 1660-1800. Southern Illinois Univ. Press, pp. 288-295, 1982.

Wrighten, Mary Ann. An Apology for the Life and Conduct of Mrs. Mary Wrighten. Edited by 

Wooley, C.A, and Allen A. Brown. London: s.n, 1800. https://archive.org/details/apologyforlifeco00wool/page/n5.

Wiltenburg, Joy. Disorderly Women and Female Power in the Street Literature of Early Modern England and Germany. University Press of Virginia, 1992.