Circulating the Name of a Whore: Eliza Haywood's Betsy Thoughtless, Betty Careless and the Duplicities of the Double Standard

摘要

How can a young woman taste the commercial delights of the city without circulating as public property (a prostitute) rather than private (wife or potential wife)? Haywood addresses this question in The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751). Like Fantomina (1725) and Book V of The Female Spectator (1744), it reveals her sustained narrative interest in the free speech that prostitutes, unlike gentlewomen, enjoyed with men. Betsy associates closely with several whores, and Haywood likely named her to suggest the interdependence of the heroine and the whore. Similarly named, Betty Careless (d. 1752) was a celebrated prostitute active in Haywood's Covent Garden milieu. William Hogarth, Henry Fielding, Richard Graves, and many less reputable writers ensured Careless's posthumous fame, which endured as long as and along with Haywood's own. How Careless's name circulated from Oxford to Cambridge, from the Holy Club to the Demoniacs, illuminates the hazards Betsy faces and even Haywood's critical fortunes. Prostitution was conspicuous in Haywood's society, and crucial scenes in Betsy Thoughtless, including some satire of Trueworth, turn on the double standard that rationalized it. It provides an indispensable context for the novel and for understanding Haywood's typical blend of conventionality with shrewd gender analysis.