The Ruined Maid

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of gender discrimination and sexual content.

“In the Days of Crinoline” by Thomas Hardy (1914) 

Like “The Ruined Maid,” the poem “In the Days of Crinoline” presents a link between clothing and female sexuality. As soon as the wife of a vicar gets out of his sight, she puts on an “ostrich-feathered hat” (which is reminiscent of ’Melia’s three-feathered hat), to replace her dowdy bonnet. She then heads for town, from where she later returns with a lover and they disappear into the woods together. After their tryst, she replaces the hat with the humble bonnet and returns to her husband, who never suspects a thing. 

“In Church” by Thomas Hardy (1914)

The atheist Hardy did not enjoy Christian church services, and “In Church” he satirizes a vain clergyman who mesmerizes his congregation with his voice and dramatic gestures. After the sermon, when the clergyman goes back to the vestry, he inadvertently leaves the door slightly ajar, and a young girl from his Bible class, who adores him, observes him repeating, obviously with great pride and self-satisfaction, the well-practiced gestures and poses that had so moved his congregation. 

“At Tea” by Thomas Hardy (1914)

Hardy often shone the spotlight on unhappy marriages, and in many of his “satires of circumstance,” things are not quite what they appear to be. In “At Tea,” a young wife and her husband take tea with a female guest. The wife is proud of her husband and feels that she is in a position where others would envy her. However, what she does not know is that the guest was in fact her husband’s first choice as bride, but fate would not allow it. The guest behaves amiably and betrays nothing of this history, even though she is aware of it, while the husband “throws her a stray glance yearningly.”