Godfathering: the politics of Victorian family relations

Sanders, Valerie

Abstract

In Chapter 5 of Dickens’ Dombey and Son (1848), Mr Dombey, who has longed all his married life for a son to inherit the family business, finally acquires one — at the cost of his exhausted wife — and is planning little Paul’s christening ceremony. His sister Mrs Chick, promoting her friend Miss Tox as a potential second wife, hopes Dombey might make her a godmother, but worries that Miss Tox is too negligible for such an honour. “Godfathers, of course,” continued Mrs Chick, “are important in point of connexion and influence”’ — implying that godmothers are less essential in buttressing a family’s social position. Mr Dombey’s tetchy reply is: ‘“I don’t know why they should be, to my son.” ’ He elaborates: ‘“The kind of foreign help which people usually seek for their children, I can afford to despise; being above it, I hope”.’ Miss Tox is therefore ‘elevated … to the godmothership of little Paul, in virtue of her insignificance.’

Citation

Sanders, V. (2009). Godfathering: the politics of Victorian family relations. In L. Delap, B. Griffin, & A. Wills (Eds.), The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800 (243-260). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230250796

• Online Publication Date: Aug 13, 2009
• Publication Date: Aug 13, 2009
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Pages: 243-260
• Book Title: The Politics of Domestic Authority in Britain since 1800
• Chapter Number: 11
• ISBN: 9780230579941 ; 9781349368365
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230250796
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/396375
• Contract Date: Jan 1, 2009