Female celibacy

Female celibacy was presented as utterly different from the celibacy men. The highly pejorative designation ‘old maid’ threatened any woman who reached the age of 30 without being married. While celibacy allowed them a relative autonomy not enjoyed by married women, who were entirely dependent on their husbands, this condition was suspected of having devastating effects both physical and moral. ‘To pass Saint Catherine,’ meaning to reach 25 years old without being married was thus a terrifying prospect for most young women among the nobility and bourgeoisie. 

With his depictions of mademoiselle Gamard, mademoiselle Michonneau, cousin Bette and so many others, Balzac is without a doubt the author who produced the most ferocious portraits of old maids in all of 19^thcentury literature. Many of these heroines are striking for their malice—the fruit of long frustrations; others are merely foolish, like Rose Cormon, heroine of the novel La Vieille Fille (The Old Maid). 

‘But, alas! the poor thing was now forty years old. At this period, after vainly seeking to put into her life those interests which make the Woman, and finding herself forced to remain a maiden, she fortified her virtue by stern religious practice. She had recourse to religion, that great consoler of oppressed virginity. A confessor had, for the last three years, directed Mademoiselle Cormon rather stupidly in the path of maceration; he advised the use of scourging, which, if modern medical science is to be believed, produces an effect quite the contrary to that expected by the worthy priest, whose knowledge of hygiene was not extensive. These absurd practices were beginning to shed a monastic tint over the face of Rose Cormon, who now saw with something like despair her white skin assuming the yellow tones which proclaim maturity. A slight down on her upper lip, about the corners, began to spread and darken like a trail of smoke; her temples grew shiny; decadence was beginning! It was authentic in Alençon that Mademoiselle Cormon suffered from rush of blood to the head. She confided her ills to the Chevalier de Valois, enumerating her foot-baths, and consulting him as to refrigerants. On such occasions the shrewd old gentleman would pull out his snuffbox, gaze at the Princess Goritza, and say, by way of conclusion:— “The right composing draught, my dear lady, is a good and kind husband.”  “But whom can one trust?” she replied. 

Honoré de Balzac, La Vieille Fille, 1837 (Translation Katharine Prescott Wormeley) 

Balzac was always fascinated by scientific theories. Here, he has retained the notion, widespread in the early 19^thcentury, that in certain organs, the lack of use causes atrophy: women might thus lose their charms by failing to exercise them, and that the forcible continence of an old maid could be easily read in her features. He applies the same theory to men as well: a bachelor exercising too much self-restraint might, according to the author, risk permanent lethargy of his senses. 

‘Toward the close of the year 1817, Felicité des Touches began to perceive, not the fading of her beauty, but the beginning of a certain lassitude of body. She saw that a change would presently take place in her person as the result of her obstinate celibacy. She wanted to retain her youth and beauty, to which at that time she clung. Science warned her of the sentence pronounced by Nature upon all her creations, which perish as much by the misconception of her laws as by the abuse of them. The macerated face of her aunt returned to her memory and made her shudder. Placed between marriage and love, her desire was to keep her freedom; but she was now no longer indifferent to homage and the admiration that surrounded her. She was, at the moment when this history begins, almtéost exactly what she was in 1817. Eighteen years had passed over her head and respected it. At forty she might have been thought no more than twenty-five. Therefore, to describe her in 1836 is to picture her as she was in 1817. Women who know the conditions of temperament and happiness in which a woman should live to resist the ravages of time will understand how and why Felicité des Touches enjoyed this great privilege as they study a portrait for which were reserved the brightest tints of Nature’s palette, and the richest setting.’

Honoré de Balzac, Béatrix, 1839

As caricature would have it, an old maid was recognisable by her rumpled, yellowed skin, her attire at once precious and absurd, and her resentful character.