As public criticism of Britains war-making became more vocal and searching in the later decades of the eighteenth century, the process of moral insulation (distancing the public morally from the violence of war) became more important. It allowed the pacific ideal of feminine virtue to be reconciled with support for war, as seen in the emergent figure of the wife-at-war. Expressions of sympathy for the victims of war, reinterpretations of pacific Christian doctrine, and attempts to dissociate the officer classes morally from the violent practices of those they commanded, all provided some moral insulation for members of the reading public. The chapter ends with reference to Jane Austens fiction, which both depends upon, and exposes the limits of, such insulation.

This considers the impact of systemic critiques of war, developed in the period of the American and French Revolutions, upon the work of two novelists. Samuel Jackson Pratts Emma Corbett, written during – and in opposition to – the American War of Independence, describes a young Engish heroines growing awareness of the role of property relations in supporting martial ideals and causing wars, and her conversion to a form of pacifism. Charlotte Smiths The Old Manor House, written in the early years of the French Revolution, describes a British soldier fighting in the American War of Independence, who comes to question the purpose and causes of the war, including the chivalric values of the ruling class. Both novels show how war exposes the selfish foundations of ordinary social life. While Jackson Pratts heroine escapes compromise through death, Smiths hero inherits the estate of the woman whose aristocratic values he despises.

This considers the relationship between the elevation of the novel into moral respectability and the turn to anti-heroic discourse. The novels of Daniel Defoe (works influenced by rogue narratives) show little interest in representations of feminine virtue of the kind Richardson foregrounds in his influential Pamela. Where Defoe represents martial violence with relatively few reservations, in the novels of Richardson and Fielding, a concern with feminine virtue is accompanied by anti-heroic discourse which entails critical views of war. As novelists, Fielding and Smollett both represent the malign effects of modern war while, in Amelia, Fielding even represents a form of pacifist feeling. The chapter ends with discussion of the anonymous Ephraim Tristram Bates, in which a potentially excellent soldier is defeated by a corrupt system of military patronage, and of Sternes Tristram Shandy, in which martial virtue has become a matter of moral sentiment, destructive of domestic order.

Chastity signifies sexual purity and restraint, either through virginity or through fidelity in marriage. While Augustine and Aquinas define chastity as a virtue for both men and women, Shakespeare depicts chastity almost exclusively as a female virtue, repeatedly using the term in connection with feminized representations of nature, the virgin goddess Diana, and young women (married and unmarried). Although Shakespeare’s plays include male characters who fixate on the chastity of female characters, chastity is a virtue of self-government that must, by definition, be under the control of women themselves. For Shakespeare’s female characters, chastity functions as a means of expressing bodily autonomy and rejecting attempts at patriarchal control, concepts that are still relevant for young women today. Shakespeare’s chaste heroines now lend their names and stories to projects designed to promote social justice and advocacy for young women. The cultural authority of Shakespeare’s plays can help provide a historical and ethical reference for a virtue that centers on control over one’s own body. In the context of current global debates about women’s rights and sexual assault, Shakespeare’s plays demonstrate that chastity is not only a relevant virtue — it is crucial to understanding the importance of women’s autonomy.