Biography

Louise Aston’s companions warmly described her as “an irrepressible bar-room genius” (Kontje 1998: 10) who usually dressed as a young man. When escorted by other writers, literary critics, musicians, artists, and officers, Aston would fly into a rage if anyone addressed her as “Louise” rather than “Louis.”215 She was often portrayed as a German George Sand or as a femme fatale wearing a provocatively low-cut dress and gazing sensuously at the observer.216 Aston’s precocious image encapsulates the dangerous life of this socio-politically engaged woman who not only promulgated but also put into practice new democratic ideas. She promoted equality and emancipation for all and declared that all relationships should be based on love (Schultz 1981: 93).

Louise Aston was born on November 26, 1814 near Magdeburg into a large family with at least five children (Goetzinger 1983: 23). As the youngest daughter of Luise Charlotte Bering and Johann Gottfried Hoche, an adviser to the church and senior Protestant pastor in Gröningen, Saxony-Anhalt, Aston received a superb education from her father and from a private teacher, especially in music and literature (Naffin 1998: 26). According to Franz Brümmer’s notes accompanying his Writer’s Almanac, Louise Aston was “a pretty and highly gifted child” raised in a family where “a sophisticated tone ruled” and where, because of her mother’s influence, poetry and music had a secure place in the curriculum (Goetzinger: 23). Alfred Hoche, Louise Aston’s nephew, mentioned in his memoirs the literary tradition of the family; Louise Aston’s father and her sister Eulalie Merx left extensive literary works (Goetzinger 1983: 23).

Being brought up by parents who married for love and suffered economic hardships, had a profound influence on Louise Aston’s personal and public life (Schultz 1981: 90). Aston’s mother, a countess, was disinherited because she married below her social station and against the desires and aspirations of her relatives. It appears that Louise’s parents overcame many obstacles to remain united, and hence wanted to protect their daughter against the same hardship and disillusionment (Whittle and Pinfold 2005: 131 – 132). Aston married in her early twenties in 1835 and then again in 1841 and got divorced twice (1838 and 1844) from the same husband, the English industrialist Samuel Aston of Magdeburg (Peterson 1998: 40). Aston perceived her arranged marriage based on financial security as a humiliation, “disgrace,” and “soul trade” (Schultz 1981: 96). A poem from Aston’s anthology entitled “Wilde Rosen” (1846) offers us a glimpse of her attitude: “Nicht ahnt’s der Kranz in meinen Locken, daß ich dem Tode angetraut; Nicht ahnen es die Kirchenglocken, zu läuten einer Grabesbraut.”217 (Aston 1983: 21) For her, a loveless marriage was equal to death.

After her second divorce, thirty-year-old Louise Aston moved to Berlin with a small alimony and a young child in order to further her writing career and to make a living for herself and her daughter (Peterson: 40). In Berlin, she associated with a revolutionary group of anarchistic intellectuals, the Free Berliners, and soon became one of the most charismatic and hotly debated personalities in the social and literary scene of Vormärz Germany (40). The members of the group met at the wine tavern Hippel, where they discussed their works and ideas (Schultz 1981: 91). Liberated from her stifling married life and motivated by George Sand, Aston outraged Berlin by wearing men’s garments, smoking cigars, drinking beer and, most of all, by living her principles of free love while promoting emancipation and equal rights for women (91). Gossip about her never ceased as she enjoyed life in Berlin to the fullest and refused to conform to middle class standards (Hülsbergen 1997: 27). She changed lovers according to her mood and need; however, the remained faithful to the one she had chosen or who had chosen her for the length of time they were together (Gagern: 51). Rudolf Gottschall, one of her partners,218 introduced Aston to the Berlin intellectual and literary scene because she exhibited a keen interest in artistic and radical political efforts (Hülsbergen 1997: 27). Every Saturday, a group of philosophers, medical doctors, lawyers, writers, businessmen, aristocrats, and poets met to engage in lively discussions (27).

In 1845, Gottschall dedicated to Aston a small volume of poetry including the love poem “Madonna und Magdalena,” which caused a public scandal (27). This poem first brought Aston’s name to public attention in the world of letters since she was the addressee of this sacrilegious paean to free sensual love:

Die freie Liebe wird die Welt befrein.
Ihr sollt dem alten Schreckgespenst der Schande
Nicht länger der Entsagung Tränen weihn.
Die Kinder dieser Welt, nicht spröde Nonnen,
Sind unsre neuen, heiligen Madonnen (Goetzinger 1983: 29).219

Aston’s own literary debut, a collection of poems entitled “Wilde Rosen”220, was hardly less provocative. It echoed Gottschall’s sentiments and entered into a poetic dialogue with him. In a paen to her idol George Sand, Aston depicts marriage as a curse and celebrates the liberated woman subjected only to her own spirit (Aston 1983: 43). Aston was quite blunt and consistent in her firm commitment to invent herself anew. In the title poem of “Wilde Rosen,” she describes her female role model. Her nonpareil is a wild rose on a mountain top whose beauty hunters cannot resist. The pretty young maiden does not welcome admirers who come to pluck the rose but, rather, ‘kisses’ them as their bodies fall to the bottom of the abyss (Whittle and Pinfold 2005: 133 – 134). By publicly propagating free physical love and total independence from patriarchy, Aston broke all taboos and rules for a modest woman in the nineteenth century. Many of Aston’s critics did not consider emancipation a political topic and accused her of an exhibitionist addiction to lust, thus transforming her into a caricature of the women’s rights movement (Warnecke 2001: 17). Moreover, anonymous patriots felt obliged to inform the police about a plot against the state, the king, and religion that Aston, the infamous femme fatale, was supposedly organizing together with her male companions (Kontje 1998: 171). Even though reports of Aston’s political activities were grossly exaggerated, her beliefs were radical enough to provoke the wrath of the Prussian authorities.

The cultural consensus demanded a wife’s full subordination to her husband, including her integration in his social and professional status.221 Because a breach of convention had grave consequences, Aston must have been aware that her provokingly self-confident behavior and her ideas would be considered dangerous to middle-class peace and order. However, ever since her divorce, itself an unconventional if not scandalous act, Aston learned to fight for her rights (Schultz 1981: 92). In March 1846, she was sentenced to leave Berlin within eight days but did not accept defeat without a fight. In the end, the authorities found her guilty not on political or criminal grounds, but rather because of personal issues (Hülsbergen 1979: 30). Her way of life made her a threat to society and she was eventually expelled to Köpenick; yet, during her two-year banishment, she managed to visit Berlin daily (31). Moreover, her exile in Köpenick turned out to be the most productive time of her life since three of her works appeared one shortly after the other: Meine Emanzipation, Verweisung und Rechtfertigung (1846), Aus dem Leben einer Frau (1847), and Lydia (1848).222

Louise Aston’s childhood as well as her adolescent years spent with her family had a far-reaching impact on her life. The example of her parents who married for love and disregarded the supposed advantages of an arranged marriage affected her to the core of her being. She put into practice her philosophy of life based on free and unbounded love and sought to communicate it on a larger scale; endeavors which assured her place in history as the most progressive feminist of the era. Louise Aston’s education and upbringing in her father’s parsonage influenced her way of life and her creative work as a writer. Aston incorporates into her novel Aus dem Leben einer Frau her modern unorthodox thoughts rooted in her formal and informal education:

Mein Vater war Prediger auf dem Lande; ich sein einziges Kind! Aus den engen Lebensverhältnissen sehnte ich mich hinaus und vor meiner Seele stand, als einzig erstrebenswerth, ein bewegtes Leben mit allen Freuden der Welt: Ich war bis zu meinem sechzehnten Jahre fast nie über die Gränzen unseres Dorfes hinausgekommen; nur meine Phantasie, deren angeborene Glut durch mannigfache Lektüre genährt war, schuf mir, jenseits des Bereichs ein Eldorado voll unbestimmten Glückes (Aston 1982: 80).223

Her instruction and guidance encouraged free development of the imagination and enabled Aston to leave the parsonage and live according to her ideals. Her novel traces the personal emancipation of a young woman who becomes aware of social problems. Johanna, the daughter of a pastor, is intimidated by her father into marrying an older insensitive and unattractive but affluent man by the name of Oburn. She marries him reluctantly and even though she has given her love and word to another man. The husband perceives the marriage to be a business transaction and treats his wife as if he bought her, owned her, and could trade her. Apart from the main theme concerning the institution of marriage and Johanna’s emancipation, the novel addresses social difficulties, thus disclosing the author’s growing political consciousness.

Romantic Form

Aus dem Leben einer Frau is the first of Aston’s three autobiographical novels. Unlike many of her equally engaged contemporaries, Aston appears to have never considered a pseudonym. Considering Aston’s reputation, the act of signing her own name to the work is a statement of courage and of her determination to be publicly visible. In the preface, the author remarks that her work is as “fragmentary as this whole modern world” (Aston 1982: VI). Katherine Goodman suggests that Aston’s autobiographical novel shows “no traces of having been affected by either Rahel Varnhagen or Bettine von Arnim” (Goodman 1986: 127). In contrast, I argue that Aston’s heavy reliance on dialogue, which propels the plot, points to an intentional dependence on female predecessors and connects her to a newer form of dialogue. It would appear that Aston was fascinated with the dialogical aspects of Romantic sociability in the context of ego documents and salon conversations.224 By raising their private and public concerns in a forum that readily synthesized these two spheres, Varnhagen and Arnim were able to influence their surroundings through dialogue. Similarly, both the topos of the fragmented world and the fact that Aston’s critique of society is voiced through dialogue evoke the Romantic era (Joeres and Maynes 1986: 201).

The novel Aus dem Leben einer Frau is influenced by three genres: the trivial novel, the political Enlightenment novel, and the autobiographical confession novel (Fingerhut 1983: 157). The fragmentary confession novel is a form of popular literature the Young German poets were fond of. Its most important feature is that of being a “mirror of itself” (159). The clear opposition between the purity of the heart and the corruption of the world, sentimental scenes of renunciation, heroism, and restrained passion, intrigues and interpolated authorial comments all help paint a vivid picture of contemporary social reality.

Kathrin Goodman asserts that Aston had her book published during a time of political and aesthetic rebellion against Goethe and classical ideals of noble simplicity and quiet grandeur (1986: 123). The fact that Aston mentions Dichtung und Wahrheit225 in her preface as a contrast to her own work, which is fragmentary and therefore more appropriate to modern life, confirms this assertion: “Diese Blätter … Darum sind sie fragmentarisch, wie diese ganze moderne Welt, aus deren gärenden Elementen sie hervorgegangen, ein Beitrag zur Charakteristik unseres Lebens!”226 (Aston 1982: V – VI) Aston places value on her work’s proximity to and involvement in contemporary life. Her autobiography begins in medias res and incorporates fragmentary forms, a letter and diary entries, while manifesting dependence on dialogue.

The Romantics had a great appreciation for the genres of letter and dialogue; friendships within Romantic circles often found expression in correspondence (Nickisch 1991: 55). Romantic letters in particular reflect the idea of sociability and the dialogical space of the salon; at the same time, they attest to the attempts of educated women to bridge the growing gap between private and public spheres around 1800. Women, who wished to establish themselves in the emergent bourgeois public sphere, were instrumental in the creation of new conversational models.227 The Jena Romantics regarded the exchange of letters as a prolongation of conversations carried out in the group as a whole, a form of symphilosophizing, and as an authentic and therefore preferable form of literary expression (Blackwell and Zantop 1990: 283). Already in the first biography of Rahel Levin Varnhagen, Eduard Schmidt-Weissenfels established a connection between the salon and the letter, which he called the “Kind des Salons”228 (Schmidt-Weissenfels 1857: 45). Louise Aston herself entertained a salon of young literati who gathered every Wednesday in her Berlin house, among them Gustav von Szepansky, a Prussian officer, writer and co-founder of Rütli229 as well as Titus Ullrich, and Rudolf Loewensteis (Hülsbergen 1997: 28). Salons became the heart and soul of intellectual and social life, and women not only organized these get-togethers, but played a leading role in these erudite conversations.230

Salon circles often motivated continued epistolary exchanges, as women frequently encountered their correspondents in the salons, and conversations in the salons determined the subject matter of the letters. Unlike the Classical authors, the Romantics valorized subjective, dazzling, ambiguous intellectuality and irony (Nickisch 1991: 55). Bettina Brentano von Arnim and Rahel Levin Varnhagen are acclaimed examples of a “female life in letters” (Nickisch 1991: 214). In its close coupling of life and writing, quotidian and poetic, the creation of and reflection upon art, which then potentializes life and work, women letter writing can be considered uniquely Romantic.

Although Aston’s work is a novel, she employs the form of the letter as well as dialogical structures. The author’s self-representation enlists dialogue and fragmentary forms as it captures everyday moments as well as a myriad of concerns. The heroine of Aus dem Leben einer Frau experiences much that Aston herself experienced. In this sense, the novel does indeed have the character of a confession, as the author highlights in the foreword. She aims to make her social drama authentic and topical. Aston prefers a direct portrayal over artistic detachment and spirituality. Nevertheless, the topos of love, evoking Romanticism, informs all other concerns, as noted by Aston in the preface:

Wir schreiben flüchtige Zeilen; aber wir schreiben sie mit unserem Herzblut! Findet dies Fragment Anklang, hat der Kern dieses Lebens und sein Schicksal eine allgemeine Bedeutung, so schließt sich vielleicht ein zweites Fragment

daran, das manche Entwicklungen weiter führt, und manche “confessions” vollendet. Hamburg, im März 1847.231 (Aston 1982: VI)

Aston employs the term “heart’s blood” in the preface and ends the novel with the word “love,” thus, framing her work within the discourse of love. Undoubtedly, Aston intended to depict contemporary social life, not visions or idylls. To her, love referred to sentiments between men and women, not to a passion for all of nature’s creation, as in Bettina Brentano von Arnim’s work (Goodman 1986: 129). Aston does not define passion more narrowly than the Romantics, but rather approaches the subject of love from a different angle (1982: 110 – 111). In the diary-section of her novel, Aston has one of the characters, Baron Stein, describe the main figure, Johanna, whom he admires:

Dies Weib ist Poesie; ihr ganzes Wesen ein Gedicht! Ich habe nie geliebt! Auch das ist nicht Liebe! Liebe ist unruhig und voller Wünsche; stets unzufrieden mit dem Nächsten, stets hinauslangend in die Ferne! Von einer Stufe der Seligkeit strebt sie nach der höhern hinan; und ihre Himmelsleiter ist unendlich! Ich bin ruhig und zufrieden (1982: 110 – 111).232

The words of Baron Stein echo Romantic ideas as per Novalis’s dictum: “Der wahre Brief ist, seiner Natur nach poetisch”233 (Nickisch 1991: 96). The Baron calls Johanna poetic and a poem turns her into both art and a commodity with its own inherent aesthetic value.234 She embodies a creation with which he should fall in love, but refuses to do so. Because the Baron is immune to passion, he is able to interact with Johanna on the level of true friendship, a different kind of love.

Aston’s closing statement: “[…] die das Gesetz und die Sitte der Menschen geheiligt – die Liebe”235 is powerful and revolutionary (1982: VI). Virgil’s “love conquers all” is transposed here, but no longer has an all-encompassing quality since Aston talks specifically about romantic love, which for her means a woman’s role is that of being a soul mate and intellectual companion. The Romantics celebrated symbiotic intensive feelings and rejected the dichotomy of love and fellowship, of lovers and spouses.236 Love, including sensual love, for Aston as for Arnim or Varnhagen, can and will prevail against established social customs.

Religion

Louise Aston’s upbringing in her father’s parsonage had a reverse effect on her views about religion. When summoned to the police station to give testimony, Aston was asked to delineate her views on society, morals, and religion (Schultz 1986: 92). She did so in an essay called “Das ist das Glaubensbekenntnis der Madam Aston.”237 Louise Aston had not been expelled from Berlin because she had taken part in the events of March 1848, but rather because she embodied a hedonistic and atheistic notion of emancipation and was considered a heretic (Joeres and Maynes 1986: 197). The statement from Aston’s interrogation in March of 1846 provides a succinct summary of her convictions: her lack of faith, her smoking habits, her intention to emancipate women at all cost, her perception of marriage as an immoral institution that causes disappointment and unhappiness because enduring love cannot be sustained (Joeres and Maynes 1986: 199).

It can be assumed that religion played a decisive role in the authorities’ decision to expel Aston. Her religious views are reflected in her work. The author begins Aus dem Leben einer Frau with the description of peaceful country life:

Eine alterthümliche Pfarrerwohnung gilt von jeher für das heimathliche Reich der Idylle. Hier quartiert, seit Vossens Louise, die gemüthliche Phantasie der Dichter ihre behaglichen Gestalten ein, welche in dem Comfort eines stillen, in sich befriedigten Lebens das letzte Ziel und den ganzen Wert der Existenz zu erschöpfen wähnen. Etwas Lindenschatten und Abendroth, Mittagessen und Gebet, eine Promenade durch die Kornfelder, die Bereitung des Kaffees und, wenn es hoch kommt, eines Hochzeitbettes – das genügt dieser friedlichen Poesie, welche die breite Prosa des Lebens in ihre langathmigen Verse übersetzt (1982: 2 – 3).238

The carefully-designed bucolic setting, which evokes a cosy, placid, and contented life, is embued with irony as the author presents this idyll as the ultimate goal of existence. It is the very idyll and its life guided by tradition that culminates in a marriage against which the female protagonist will rebel.

The quiet provincial life requires no change, but rather encourages a conventional lifestyle. Prayer belongs to the daily routine just like meals or walks. Aston uses ecclesiastical language and imagery to undermine those conservative values. For her, “ein Evangelium des Herzens,” that is the heart’s feelings, are more important than the institution of the church and dogma (1982: 73). Because Johanna refuses to marry without love, her father curses her: “Ungerathene! Ich fluche Dir!”239 (14) He cannot take the curse back since he becomes speechless and also shows no sign of willingness to do so: “Da hob der Greis matt die Augenlieder auf; die Lippen regten sich; er versuchte zu sprechen; – doch die Zunge war auf immer gelähmt!”240 (18) A heart attack left him with a paralyzed tongue. Even though Johanna later changed her decision and obeyed him, he still cannot speak: “Der Vater lag, zwar lebend, doch für immer der Sprache beraubt, ermattet auf seinem Bette. Bei dem Eintritt der Tochter erhob er mit großer Anstrengung seine Hände und legte sie auf ihr Haupt das noch immer mit dem bräutlichen Kranze geschmückt war; doch die Lippen bewegten sich nicht und konnten den Fluch nicht zurücknehmen.”241 (28) Ultimately, the curse remains. However, it does not prevent Johanna from making important decisions. She leaves her husband and becomes independent. Aston frames Johanna’s crisis of faith within the context of her marriage vows:

Als endlich die Zeremonie zu Ende war, und der Prediger nach christlichem Gebrauch die Worte der Bibel vorlas: ‘und er soll dein Herr sein,’ da zuckte es schmerzhaft um die Lippen der Braut; und als sie das ewigbindende Ja! aussprach, da richtete sie die Augen gegen den Himmel, ein Blick, aus dem das verzweiflungsvolle Bewußtsein sprach, daß sie mit diesem Wort ihr Leben zu einem ununterbrochenen Opferfeste machte.242 (23)

The vows cause her not only spiritual but also physical pain. Instantly, she resorts to prayer: “Noch einmal faltet sie ihre Hände zum Gebet – dann springt sie unheimlich rasch auf, und ruft: ‘Beten kann ich nicht – wohlan so will ich fluchen. Es giebt keinen Gott der Liebe; warum leide ich sonst.’”243 (26) Her pain is the underlying cause for her lack of faith in a loving God; she relinquishes hope of life eternal and devotes herself to an energetic improvement of this earthly life. She leaves the church, and liberates herself from her parents' authority, even though according to Luther’s teaching, children should regard their parents as God’s representatives on earth. Any imbalance in the social, political, and divine orders, based on the patriarchal system, could cause serious problems in the establishment (Joeres and Maynes 1986: 201). Even so, Johanna decides to fight against the status quo. When speaking to the man she loves, she formulates her forward-thinking convictions:

Seit ich Dich kenne – weiß ich wohl, daß ich früher nie geliebt. Und die Seligkeit zu lieben, so mit aller Kraft lieben zu können, hat mir nie Zeit gelassen zur Reue. Und ich werde es nie bereuen, Dir die ganze Stärke meiner Leidenschaft offen gezeigt zu haben. Ich bin keine von den christlichen Hausfrauen, welche die heißen Wünsche ihres Herzens, aus Furcht vor moralischer Abkanzelung oder ewiger Strafe, … Ich bin nichts weiter – als Stolz – ich will keine Seligkeit, die ich mir stehlen, über die ich vor der Welt erröthen müßte.244 (Aston 1982: 37)

Aston’s opinions on female sexuality stand in stark contrast to conventions and expectations of the time. She claims for herself the option to love freely without regard for the moral principles of the time. To appreciate, enjoy, and show passion, Johanna needs to break away from religious beliefs and social norms. It was outrageous even for a man of the Biedermeier era to disseminate atheistic ideas. But a woman who did not accept God as supreme master of her destiny threatened the social order, since her rejection of divine authority implies a rejection of worldly patriarchal authority: The fundamental rejection of the patriarchal trinity of God, king, and husband upsets not only the institution of family, but every system that rests on male dominance (Schultz 1981: 94). This is in a nutshell the core of Louise Aston’s thinking who in her thirties was prepared to put her progressive philosophy into practice.

Emancipation

A German woman who wore pants and smoked cigars was publicly condemned and punished for her candid remarks on religion and politics, wrote rebellious novels and poetry, and edited a socially critical journal. Her appropriation of male accoutrements, including sexual freedom, differs from the model which Bettina Brentano von Arnim and Rahel Levin Varnhagen adopted. Brentano von Arnim rejected the female role models found in bourgeois genre paintings as well as the model of the male-identified Madame de Gachet. Both Brentano von Arnim and Levin Varnhagen were partial to fundamentally non-gendered images of themselves, and Brentano von Arnim in particular preferred non-conforming gender roles. According to Goodman, Aston challenged stereotypical views about women, but not the concept of gender itself.245 Aston simply worked with the existing gender model but sought greater sexual freedom for both sexes. In that respect, Aston differed in her public image from many of the other women’s rights advocates of that period. Louise Aston was not excluded from the Louise Otto group because she was against Die Frauen-Zeitung246 nor because she enraged the public by wearing pants and smoking cigars, nor because she had been banned from Berlin, nor because she had participated in the events of 1848. The reason for that particular exclusion was Aston’s atheism. She believed that only separating oneself from one’s religious background could ensure the success of emancipation. For Louise Otto, religion was an essential aspect of humankind.

Among writers of Young Germany, Heinrich Heine conveyed the image of femme libre among men (Naffin 1998: 25). For Louise Aston, this became a maxim, but she was the only feminist fighting for this cause since other women in Germany perceived the idea as a threat because of the danger that men would take advantage of and not provide for women. At that time, middle-class women had virtually no career prospects. Aston was the first woman who took her private matters into the public forum (26). Her emancipated novel, which appeared in March of 1847, sold 1900 copies. It reached 9500 readers – a number that the readership of Young Germans in the 30s could barely obtain (27). In 1847, Aus dem Leben einer Frau caused a sensation and became a bestseller (28).

Louise Aston also published the cultural and socio-political periodical Freischärler. Für Kunst und soziales Leben247 in early November 1848. It was the only revolutionary newspaper in Berlin edited by a woman (Schultz 1981: 97). It questioned the dominating circumstances as well as the endeavors and hopes of many democrats (97). Eventually Freischärler was banned because it featured the most caustic satirical critique. In her farewell article “Auszuweisende Gedanken,”248 Aston made cynical comments about the fundamental right of freedom to travel: “Offenbar ist die deutsche Frezügigkeit blos darin zu suchen, daß man überall hingehen, aber nicht bleiben darf, wo man will! Auch gut! Ich bin an diese Freizügigkeit gewöhnt.”249 (Warnecke 2001: 19) Varnhagen von Ense was Aston’s most famous advocate and took her banishment as an indication for undemocratic condition. On December 11, 1848 he made a note in his diary: “Louise Aston ist aufs neue verwiesen, kurz es geht nach dem alten Schlag!”250 After her banishment from Berlin on December 23, 1848, Aston’s life became involuntarily restless. She lived first in the Alster Hotel in Hamburg, where her behavior made more headlines (Warnecke 2001: 19).

George Sand’s life and works inspired Louise Aston and gave her courage in her isolation from other women writers like Fanny Lewald and her adversary Louise Otto, who thought that Aston’s immoral way of life was harmful for the cause of women and their fight for participation in public life (Naffin 1998: 24 – 50). Being radical did not fit into the middle-class reality even though both activists were for better education for women (30). Only the journalist Mathilda Franziska Anneke who later became the most active champion for female voting rights in America, defended Aston as she asked in her pamphlet: “Was hat denn dieses Weib verbrochen?”251 (30)

Aston herself epitomized a hedonistic and atheistic notion of emancipation (Joeres and Maynes 1986: 197). She expressed this new spirit of emancipation in Das Leben einer Frau. The main character Johanna is first and foremost victimized because of her gender. In the beginning, she succumbs to the oppressive power of her father and is thus subjected to the power of her husband who belittles her, mistreats her, and tries to rent her body out to a prince. She survives a near rape and escapes from her married life. Ruth-Ellen Boetcher Joeres notes that the novel nevertheless concludes somewhat illogically, because “love will now rule her (Johanna’s) life” (Joeres 1998: 115). She offers a possible feminist interpretation namely “that men have been the cause of Johanna’s sufferings is eclipsed by an allegiance to noble femininity as the saving grace in her life” (115). To my mind, it is not Johanna’s noble femininity, but rather her vision and confidence that she will be able to live the life she desires according to her progressive beliefs. Aston constructs the following situation: Johanna’s husband, Oburn, asks her to spend a night with another man in order to settle his debts. Under these circumstances, the husband becomes a procurer that perverts the marriage, and the termination of matrimony is then the preservation of marriage as a loving relationship: “Sie rettete die Heiligkeit der Ehe, indem sie dieselbe zerriß.”252 (1982: 154) Female sexuality in the bourgeois society was for Aston a subject with which she grappled intensively in her novel. She presents a classical situation in which a young woman is fully unprepared for her first and imminent sexual contact. The act of the sexual handing over of Johanna to an unwanted and involuntary marriage is constructed as a curse, and as such Johanna experiences it. Aston’s argument is that the marriage is only a type of change or transfer of submission from father to husband. Initially Johanna breaks the will of her father who claims: “Ist nicht mein Wille Dir Gesetz? Du mußt ihm gehorchen; denn ich bin Herr über Dich!”253 (13) Later she complies with his command and marries Oburn in a church ceremony according to the solemn words: “Und er soll dein Herr sein.”254 (23) Her reaction to this order is the rejection of God in prospect of the upcoming defloration which is signaled through the avarice and corporal acquisition of Johanna by “the man of fifty, short and fat, with a dignified hanging belly, with a full bloated dark red face, with a ceremonious, big nose,” (20) who can hardly wait till she “becomes his wife fully” (20). If love were the base of this relationship, she could expect intellectual and emotional equality, instead she feels alienated: “- o mein Mann – das ist ja gerade mein Elend! Denn in meiner Ehe fühle ich mich am einsamsten, weil ich nie verstanden werde”255 (61). Not only does her husband not attempt to understand her, but he does not care for her well-being at all.

Johanna is at first used and abused but she never loses her strength and convictions. She does not act on the grounds of being noble but rather from the certainty that what she feels inside is right, and that society must change not she her views. In the first paragraph of the novel, Aston signals how the social change will take place. She describes the parsonage as an” antiquated apartment” and “local idyll,” where everything happens according to an established routine including the ceremony of a “nuptial bed” (1). In this manner, the narrator explains, true life is ignored and gives free reign to some sort of philistine phantasy, even though “life with its connections and oppositions with its troubles and important forces itself into the locked up parsonage” (2). Only from the outside the view remains as if time stood still because inside “das moderne Leben seine sozialen Schlachten schlägt”256 (2).

The modern life demanded the politicization of public sphere, which began around 1840 and brought in the subject of professional work for middle-class women, who were stigmatized when working because of the negative impact on the creditworthiness of their fathers or husbands (Warnecke 2001: 42). The women of Vormärz were the first generation of professionally working writers and journalists (43). Aston elevates personal experiences and suffering of the protagonist to a professional level and with that she transforms the private dimension into a political one. Violence in marriage was already known and made into a taboo subject in Aston’s era. She addresses the issue in her novel and writes about it in her work Meine Emancipation, Verweisung und Rechtfertigung: “Ich weiß es, welcher Entwürdigung eine Frau unter dem heiligen Schutze des Gesetzes und der Sitte ausgesetzt ist; wie sich diese hülfreichen Penaten des Hauses in nutzlose Vogelscheuchen verwandeln, und das Recht zum Adjudanten brutaler Gewalt wird!”257 (Aston in: Warnecke 2001: 114) Married women were defenseless against husbands’ violence because of the chastisement right which gave power to fathers, husbands, or authorities; the only exception was pregnancy when men might have been fined or imprisoned; thus, defenselessness of women was anchored in law (Warnecke 2001: 114). Under these circumstances, Aston still demanded for women much more, namely, a commitment to free sensual love for their emotional and physical emancipation as well as complete equality as far as the desires of the flesh were concerned. Having been influenced in that respect by George Sand, Aston includes a reference to her paragon in the novel: “Ich las eben in der Indiana, und bin von der lebenswahren Schilderung der Leidenschaft und des Schmerzes so ergriffen, daß ich heute nicht weiter lesen kann”258 (Aston 1982: 73). For Aston emotion and passion take a prominent place within the context of love. Still one needs to bear in mind that the practice of free love did not mean for her having multiple partners at the same time. The author clearly delineated Johanna’s loyalty and faithfulness to her husband: “Sie war immer wahr gewesen. Ohne daß sie ihren Mann liebte, hielt sie die Ehe doch für so heilig, daß sie aus ihren Erlebnissen ihm nie ein Geheimniß machte.”259 (96) At the same time, Aston always underlines what is important for women to get full benefits of emancipation: “Doch die Zeit der alten, germanischen Frauen ist vorübergegangen, wie die Zeit der Madonnen. Jede Zeit hat ihr eigenes Recht. Nicht in der Entsagung, sondern in der liebenden Hingabe finden wir die edle Weiblichkeit.”260 (107)

Once again, the author frames the progressive thought of losing oneself in loving abandonment and dedication within a religious context. Women need to abandon the pious model of Madonna and devote themselves fully to all-encompassing love. Therein lies the idea of noble womanhood. Aston felt very strongly that if the element of love was lacking, the marriage would be considered prostitution. The most blunt and unambiguous commentary on the subject she has written is to be found in her treatise Meine Emancipation:

Ich glaube allerdings nicht an die Nothwendigkeit und Heiligkeit der Ehe, weil ich weiß, daß ihr Glück meinstens ein erlogenes und erheucheltes ist; daß sie in ihrem Schoße alle Verwerflichkeit und Entartung verbirgt. Ich kann ein Institut nicht billigen, das mit der Anmaßung auftritt, das freie Recht der Persönlichkeit zu heiligen, ihm eine unendliche Weihe zu erteilen, während nirgends grade das Recht mehr mit Füßen getreten und im Innersten verlezt wird; ein Institut, das der höchsten Sittlichkeit prahlt, während es jeder Unsittlichkeit Thor und Thür öffnet; das eine Seelenbund sanktioniren will, während es meistens nur den Seelenhandel sanktionirt. Ich verwerfe die Ehe, weil sie zum Eigenthume macht, was nimmer Eigenthum sein kann: die freie Persönlichkeit; weil sie ein Recht giebt auf Liebe, auf die es kein Recht geben kann; bei der jedes Recht zum brutalen Unrecht wird. In den Instituten liegt die Unsittlichkeit, nicht in den Menschen; in den Menschen nur in sofern, als ihnen Einsicht und Kraft fehlt, um bessere Verhältnisse zu schaffen. Doch in uns’rem Jahrhundert liegt diese Sehnsucht, dieser hoffnugsreiche Drang und Trieb nach freieren Gestaltungen, welche endlich das rein Menschliche zu seinem Rechte kommen lassen. George Sand tritt uns als die Prophetin dieser freien schönen Zukunft entgegen, indem sie die Zerrissenheit und Nichtigkeit der jetzigen Verhältnisse mit unendlicher Wahrheit schildert. Durch die ganze neuere französische Literatur geht dieser Zug des Schmerzes und der Sehnsucht, der heiligen oft entweihten Liebe einen Tempel zu bauen. Dies ist die einzige Frauen-Emanzipation, an der auch meine Sehnsucht hängt, das recht und die Würde der Frauen in freieren Verhältnissen, in einem edleren Cultus der Liebe wieder herzustellen. Sich selbst wegzuwerfen ist die höchste Schande, und grade diese Schande wird durch die Ehe vor aller Welt zur Ehre gestempelt. Doch zu diesem neuen Cultus der Frauenwürde und Frauenliebe gehört vor allen Dingen eine tiefere Bildung und ein höheres Bewußtsein der Frauen selbst. Das ist die andere Seite einer vernünftigen Frauen-Emancipation, wie sie meiner Seele als Ideal vorschwebt.261 (Aston in: Warnecke 2001: 120 – 121)

Louise Aston’s declaration begins, once more, as if it were a religious statement, specifically a profession of faith. She replaces the positive sentence with the negative statement and proclaims that she believes neither in the necessity nor the holiness of marriage. She calls the institution of marriage immoral and a soul trade which turns women into men’s possessions. In the second part of the declaration, Aston delineates her vision for the future of the feminist movement based on the tenets already modeled by George Sand. Freedom will only be possible when the pure human love will be able to manifest itself. In order to describe the envisioned free partnerships, Aston uses one of the most characteristic words from the Romantic register, namely, Sehnsucht. She feels inexplicable yearning, desire, longing to establish the noble cult of love where the dignity of women will be restored. Here again she ties her plans to the sensual Romanticism. Sehnsucht in the sense of intensely missing something would imply that that very component must be naturally present but is just contemporarily missing and waiting to be restored to its previous place. That is to say, the natural and intended state of being should be that of emotional and physical equality between a woman and a man. According to Aston, this is the only way to heal disgraced women and build a cult of women’s dignity and love. Interestingly enough only at the end, Aston mentions more thorough education and higher consciousness which she calls the other side of her emancipation plan. Aston’s treatise gave the impression of being quite threatening to the authorities because she spoke the truth. Her gesture of speaking up or engaging in dialogue with the wider audience was considered to be open and daring and, most importantly, it was perceived as something women had not been expected to be able to do. Thus, she was materializing a tangible threat to the patriarchal state whose relevance for the future was already met with objections (Whittle and Pinfold 2005: 137).

Substantially differently from other feminists, Aston did not think education to be more important than love. Love propels every other feeling and emotion and most importantly gives the feeling of freedom. The model of love marriage which developed only in the nineteenth century was difficult to implement because daughters were still dependent on their parents as far as the choice of a husband was concerned which perverted the program of love marriage. As a result, in the early 1840 many radical female critics began to pressure middle-class women into a marriage for maintenance and thus refusing them any opportunity for professional development (Warnecke 2001: 121).

In the course of Aston’s novel, Johanna Oburn barely escapes being raped twice by aristocratic admirers. It is only through her acquaintance with Baron von Stein and her partnership and platonic friendship with him that she is able to find that a man can empathize with her. He is the one who in his diary decries her oppression. It is important to note that Aston chooses a male character to formulate and voice her most important thought about marriage without mutual love, namely, that such marriage is prostitution. Clearly, she desires to underline the fact that in order to achieve their goal, women need the understanding and cooperation of men:

Prostitution aber ist die Hingabe der Liebe, in oder außer der Ehe, ist das Wegwerfen der eigenen Persönlichkeit! Diese hoch zu halten, dies nur gegen den Preis der Liebe hinzugeben, dies schöne Maß zu bewahren – das ist in unserer Zeit des Weibes einzige Unschuld und Sittlichkeit.262 (Aston 1982: 108)

For Aston it is important to keep balance between giving of self and protecting individuality. Only this kind of freedom will guarantee women innocence and morality. Without love, Johanna feels as if she had no “Heimat”263 and knew no “family life” (76).

Aston unambiguously demanded for women the right to an undisturbed development of free personality, and thus questioned the institution of marriage and of family. Her own upbringing, which influenced her life philosophy profoundly, emerges here. On the one hand, her parents’ example of a marriage for love provides a positive theoretical and practical model for her future. On the other hand, their patriarchal stance demanding their daughter’s submission into a loveless marriage just to uphold the status quo prompts her into rejecting the institution of family all together. With Aston’s demand for the development of personality, women’s ultimate raison d'être within marriage was rejected. The Romantic concept of individualistic love connected to freedom as well as to the appeal for sexual freedom provided a basis for Louise Aston’s criticism of matrimony. Without doubt, her own forced and failed marriage comes into play here. The partnership based on love where the individuals decide on their own – not necessarily with the consent of their parents – to spend their life together became her ideal model. With this idealistic concept of relationship based on love, Aston contrasts the inferior aspirations of Johanna’s husband, Oburn, who is depicted as a typical oppressor with the focus only on himself:

Ich erwarte von Dir, Johanna, daß Du Dich vernünftig beträgst, und Deine ganze Beredungskunst und Liebenswürdigkeit aufbietest, um den Prinzen willfährig zu stimmen; denn von der Herbeischaffung dieser Summe hängt nicht allein unser eigenes Glück und das Wohl unserer Arbeiter ab; sondern meine Ehre, – merke Dir, Johanna, meine Ehre!264 (1982: 146)

The honor of the man is more important than that of a woman. For Oburn, his wife does not exist as an individual or a sovereign human being. She is his possession and is expected to sacrifice herself for him. At the moment where the aspect of prostitution is pronounced to the fullest, Johanna articulates her frustration: “’Oburn, schrie die Frau ihm entgegen,” Du willst mich verkaufen, wie eine Sache, wie Dein Eigenthum verhandeln! Fühlst Du nicht die namenlose Beschimpfung und Entwürdigung, die Dich trifft, wie mich!’“265 (151) She fights her degradation by ending the marriage by literally “ripping it apart” (154).

Aston linked her criticism of marriage for maintenance to the demand for economic, that is, professional independence of women and extended access to education which she considered a universal right to which the woman based on the nature qualifies on the same level as the man. She refused to subscribe to the restrictive and oppressive gender ideology which was vehemently discussed at the time and based on definitions of women’s destiny by emphasizing biological, rather than social factors. Aston did not believe in the codification of the two sexes by attributing to them diametrically opposite, mutually complementary sexual characteristics as according to nature, that is, ascribing to women the category of feeling and subjectivity and then categorizing men as those being able to reason and be objective (Fronius 2007: 18). She fundamentally rejected the idea that sex defined the nature of woman and consequently fought the subordination of women, which effectively precluded them from a productive participation in state and society.

Socio-Political Engagement

Apart from the main theme relating to marriage and its criticism, Aus dem Leben einer Frau portrays Johanna’s personal emancipation and her growing political consciousness. Aston connects the taboo subject of love and prostitution within marriage to the criticism about the exploitation of proletariat by the factory owner, thus linking political power with sexual violence. In contrast with some sociocritical women authors during the Vormärz period, she combined the analysis of the degrading situation of a woman to be sold as a property with the denunciation of the working class in economic misery. Aston pays particular attention to the workers who are desperately dependent on the work so that they humbly accept exploitation and cuts in wages. Unlike Fanny Lewald’s opinion, Aston’s assessment of the situation regarding the beginning of class struggle led to the conclusion that this conflict was no longer to be defused with the help of patriarchal humanitarian concepts (Schultz 1981: 90 – 91). Regardless of her criticism, Aston recognizes that progressing industrialization is future-oriented and rejects all projects suggesting the return to the idyllic countryside in the sense of Rousseau.

Aston creates a character whose circumstances mirror the situation from her own life when her parents wanted her to marry a factory owner, rather than follow into their footsteps and marry out of love. Johanna as the wife of a factory owner is confronted with the disparity between the social classes, the existence of the fourth estate, and the moral corruption of the representatives of the dominating classes. She witnesses the inhumane treatment and exploitation of the destitute workers in early capitalism and starts to comprehend that charitable actions and aid even if motivated by Christian love are not the answer. The narrator ponders the necessity for redistribution of wealth and for implementation of exhaustive social reforms. In this manner, Aston extends her ideas of emancipation to include liberation of all human beings from any kind of imposed dependence. Johanna’s husband Oburn is involved in a class conflict between middle-class and working class. He places a lot of emphasis on showing off his wealth, which includes not only his living quarters and horses but also his wife. He acts as if he bought her and wishes to put her on display for all to admire: “Meine Frau muß bemerkt werden; das verlange ich – denn ich bin ein reicher Mann.”266 (Aston 1982: 42) Aston portrays Oburn’s lifestyle in detail; for instance, she contrasts extravagant every-day meals with the life of the poor working class. The author criticizes Oburn who represents a typical factory owner at that time, that is, someone who adores splendor and displays a malicious way of thinking. The workers ask Oburn for a raise of their wages in order to be able to lead life worthy of human beings. Oburn’s answer: “Grade ihre Armuth fesselt sie an mich!”267 (62) robs the workers of their dignity. Aston juxtaposes his inhumanity, cruelty, and conspicuous consumption with his workers’ faithfulness, modesty, and submissiveness, attributes which bring out even more the fact how despicable he is.

In contrast, Johanna is presented as a compassionate and modest wife. Judging solely from her appearance, she differs from aristocratic as well as from typical middle-class women: “Ihr Anzug war einfach, aber schön.” (32) Her attire is carefully chosen and not pretentious, thus symbolically placing her beyond any demarcated social status. She does not consider money a priority in her life, does not strive for power, and leads a moral life according to what is expected of a married woman of her stage. Still, society does not expect that she, who is not welcome in high society and is there only because of the prince’s wish and invitation, would dare to refuse to be his “Maitresse” (59). The experience of Johanna’s stay in Carlsbard confirms her approach to wealth; luxury does not bring happiness, and greed might encompass sexual appetites. For the prince’s love is interchangeable with lust and since he is in a power position, he cannot imagine foregoing a single desire. That is why he reveals to Johanna: “‘Ich liebe Sie, liebe Sie wahnsinnig, will Sie besitzen um jeden Preis! Wohin Du auch gehst, süßes Weib, ich werde Dir folgen ich werde nicht eher ruhn, bis ich Deine Liebe errungen! Das schwöre ich Dir bei meiner fürstlichen Ehre!’”268 (56) The prince’s attempt to rape her marks the factual powerlessness of aristocracy. The last resort of the prince to get his pleasure and amusement, and to demonstrate his power is compared to political despotism and oppression exactly like that of the last recourse to the restoration of power, censorship, and the dissolution of student fraternities through the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819 (Wimmer: 30). Aston’s voice can be clearly recognized in Johanna’s anguished cry: “ Wie habe ich mich während der ganzen Zeit meines hiesigen Aufenthalts nach einem echten, wahren Menschen gesehnt! Diese Puppen und Zerrbilder, dies ganze Marionettspiel einer innerlich hohlen Gesellschaft, diese platten, indifferenten Gesichter.”269 Her yearning for a genuine human being signifies ultimately being able to give and receive love while having a sense of greater personal freedom from constricting societal rules.

Conclusion

Louise Aston, a convinced Republican, erotic rebel, and a symbol of social disorder, led a determined life deviating from valid norms and standards, thus, quite independent from the prevailing opinion and dedicated to her ideals. In Aus dem Leben einer Frau, Aston linked political power with sexual violence in an era of capitalist growth and financial speculation. With her novel, the author made her readership aware of a common pattern of exploitation and abuse which was prevalent in diverse realms of Vormärz society, starting with the family continuing with the factory and ending with the state. Aston arranged the text into three sections: the first unmasks patriarchal abuse, the second discloses aristocratic abuse in the state, and the third exposes the depraved coalition between the industrialists and the aristocracy. In each section of the novel, the woman is used as the medium through which men secure their power relationships; hence, Johanna is the puppet in her father’s marital tactics, the object of irrepressible desire and a near-rape victim of the prince, as well as the pawn in her husband’s financial deal (Aston 1982: 75). With her writing, Aston encouraged women to emancipate themselves by means of either mentally or physically escaping their new societal role of a married woman trapped within a domestic space. As a woman and an author, Louise Aston moved outside of the patriarchal order. In her writing and with her life, she professed and demonstrated that only where harmony of views and attitudes are to be found, love will grow. She also encouraged the belief that mutual love and passion belong to a union between a man and a woman not necessarily united in a bond of formal marriage. In both her life and works, Louise Aston demanded unceasingly her portion of freedom.

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