gossip

Gossip Edification Masquerade Taking Airs Decorum Celebrity Conversation/Wit Women's Beauty Men's Beauty and Fashionability Marriage and Courtship War of the Sexes

Characters Caricaturas. By William Hogarth. 1743.⁴¹

Gossip

Although ostensibly directed towards educating readers, the Female Tatler, as the title indicates, is a publication built around tattling, telling, informing, and gossiping. Mrs. Crackenthorpe inveighs against those who send letters, using the Female Tatler as a means by which they can expose their superiors and their friends (no. 7). She wisely observes: "People little think that an impertinent satire upon others is a severe libel upon themselves" (no. 12). Mrs. Crackenthorpe rests assured in the conviction that her satires, not being impertinent, do not reflect ill on her character.

In her first publication, Mrs. Crackenthorpe assures her readers that her drawing room never "had the least ill character, tho’ a foolish baronet once call’d it the scandal office. But as I am courteous to all persons, and strangers have the same respect paid ‘em as my former acquaintance, half the nation visits me, where I have a true history of the world" (no. 1). Although stories about the scandalous behavior of others may be circulated in her drawing room, Mrs. Crackenthorpe refuses to perform such scandalous behavior herself by acting discourteously to those who are kind enough to deliver

scandal to her door. She claims to deal not in fictions but in fact (in the "true history" of her world). In fact, Mrs. Crackenthorpe insists on the substance and variation of her drawing room. "The variety of our conversation affords general satisfaction; books are canvas’d, removals at court suggested, law cases disputed, the price of stocks told, the beaus and ladies inform us of new fashions, and the first long pocket that was seen in town receiv’d its reputation from being approved of at Mrs Crackenthorpe’s drawing room" (no. 1). Nevertheless, the inhabitants of her drawing room spread gossip like infection when allowed the opportunity: "when we get into general tittle-tattle, ‘tis every little story that happens to get air, those of quality are as liable to reflection as their inferiors, and seldom any person obliges the company with a new piece of scandal, but ‘tis repaid him with above twenty more" (no. 1). Gossip is self-perpetuating: relating one bit of information garners dozens of responses.

Gossip serves as a tool of social policing in the world of the Female Tatler. It exposes vices, ridicules folly, and (so it hopes) effects change.

Would people of rank proceed with honour, justice, and a nobleness of spirit, and let their actions, not their equipage, support the dignity of their station, we might hope for a true Golden Age; but when we daily hear of unaccountable whims and extravagant frolics committed by the better sort, we must expect those of inferior classes will imitate them in their habits of mind, as well as body, and the only way to correct great men’s foibles, is handsomely to ridicule ‘em; a seasonable banter has often had a reclaiming effect, when serious advice from a grave divine has been though impudence (no. 1).

Indecorous behavior reflects badly not only on one’s social class but sets a bad example for those of inferior status as well. Mrs. Crackenthorpe suggests that since the lower orders will always imitate their betters, their betters should behave in a manner that reflects how they would like the lower orders to behave. Although noting that "serious advice from a grave divine" will not bring change, Mrs. Crackenthorpe sets herself up as the comic divine. Only through exposure and ridicule, she believes, can change of any sort be brought about; and she is just the person to expose and to ridicule.

Although the Female Tatler never deigns to discuss the lower classes except as they relate to the well being of the upper classes, Anna Clark discusses the ways in which gossip functioned similarly—as a tool of social policing—among the working classes. Because women played an important role in production for the working-class family during this era, they were not secluded in the home as they were in other countries. Gossip therefore played an important role in controlling women’s behavior. Well into the nineteenth century, "gossip about women’s sexual reputation expressed the contradictions between women’s economic and social participation, their low social status in a patriarchal society, and increasingly restricted notions of respectability."⁴² These women used gossip to protect the status of the community they belonged to since one woman’s folly could reflect badly on all the women of that community. Despite the disparity in wealth and station, gossip therefore functioned similarly in all classes.

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