In the compelling dramatic monologue ‘Cousin Kate’, the author explores the treatment of women in the 19th century by revealing the sexual double standards that operated at that time. In line 15, Christina Rossetti compares the cottage maiden to an ‘unclean thing’, an outcast and a fallen woman. Rossetti uses the metaphor (i.e. the narrator describes herself as ‘unclean’) to show how society viewed the maiden because she was an abandoned, unmarried woman with a child. However, the man (the lord) was not condemned by society, even though he fathered a child outside of marriage. So, the poem shows how easily a woman could fall short of the moral standards the society required of them and be turned into an outcast; whereas men were generally excused. An alliteration is used in the first stanza to emphasize the loss of innocence - the loss of innocence is conveyed by the soft M of ‘maiden', ‘mates' and ‘mindful' .
The sin of temptation is portrayed in the 11th line (second stanza). The sibilance ‘To lead a shameful shameless life’ is an oxymoron, and it shows how much religion dominated the lives of women in those time. The women were expected to be virtues and maintain religion; whereas men were able to make any decision (again, we can see the gender inequality in the 19th century) as they had all the power in society. The speaker is ‘lured’(line 9) by the man, but the maid experiences ‘joy’ (line 10) and she is eager to please the lord because of the love and admiration he has shown for her. Because the lord filled her ‘heart with care’ (line 8), the woman is obliged to serve the lord and so leads a ‘shameful shameless life’. From this, we can understand another thing about how women were treated in the 19th century, which I will describe in the next paragraph.
Women were expected to serve men and they were seen as a possession of man in the the time the poem was written in. The word ‘plaything’ symbolises possession. There is a also an underlying meaning of ‘plaything’ - plaything describes the maiden was not held with much importance by the lord and the lord used the maiden for his amusement. Then, the author describes the maiden as the lord’s ‘love’. This use of an unapparent semantic field also symbolises possession. Even though ‘love’ sounds much more positive than ‘plaything’, both words represent possession because ‘his’(a possessive pronoun) is repeated times before the nouns ‘plaything’ and ‘love’. The metaphor is extended when the author describes the maid as a ‘silken knot’ and a ‘glove’. The lord wore the maid as a silken knot - which is symbolic of the fact that the lord had no regard for the maids feelings and sees her a fashion accessory he could use and then cast away, rather than as an individual with her own needs - he casts her away eventually. The word ‘glove’ is meant to symbolicof the purpose of the maid was to serve the lord - he used her and moulded her into a shape that suited him and then, like a glove that no longer pleases, dispensed with her completely. A glove is an intimate and personal object that fits itself around its user. By describing herself as a glove, the speaker acknowledges that she lost sight of her own needs and desires in an attempt to please and suit the lord.
‘Cousin Kate’ also shows men restricted women in the 19th century. ‘He lured me into his palace home’ (line 9) - this imagery suggests that the protagonist was lured into a trap (which is the palace home) where the maid became his possession. Then, the author says that Kate was ‘bound’ in marriage by the lord. So, there is repeated message in the poem: according to the author, the foundations of marriage is less based on love than on the greed of the male. This message is contradictory to the view the society had at that time. Victorians thought that marriage was the key for a table society. However, the poem shows that marriage was a great burden for women at that time; Kate is expected to bear a child for the lord, but she is unable to and so she is sad.
The author explores the fact that women were not always content with marriage by changing the rhyming of the last stanza. The entire poem is written within an unrelenting rhyme scheme. Within each verse, the final word of even lines all rhyme with one another. Around this rhyme scheme, other rhymes are introduced.
In the final verse, the rhyme scheme runs ‘abcbdbeb’. Whereas in most of the stanzas the odd lines rhyme, here the odd lines don’t rhyme (but the even lines continue to do so) , making the individualised words stand out more. ‘Ring' and ‘one' (lines 43, 47) are both words which usually signify unity, but the situation the speaker describes does not have a unified happy ending and the wedding-ring she speaks of does not symbolise the union it traditionally stands for.
If we compare the ‘Cousin Kate’ to ‘A married state’, we can find many similarities. Cousin Kate briefly highlights the fact that marriage is not always a happy outcome and ‘A married state’ strongly approves of this idea that marriage usually leads to the wife to be discontent. However, there is a difference between the two poems. ‘Cousin Kate’ shows that having child is the only joy that can be given from marriage, but ‘A married state’ states that having children worsens the burden of marriage. We know that ‘Cousin Kate’ shows that a child the positive outcome of a marriage because of the echoed(repeated) structure in the final stanza – that Kate has ‘not got' and is ‘not like to get' the gift of a child.
Now, lets compare ‘Cousin Kate’ to ‘The Merchant of Venice’. Both pieces of literature implies that marriages don’t always end in happiness (in Act 5 Scene 1, we see that Jessica and Lorenzo are doubtful that their marriage was a good decision when they make allusions to their probably failing relationship to mystical failed relationships). Also, ‘The Merchant of Venice’ shows how men value his lover more than after their marriage - Bassanio worships Portia before their marriage, and after their marriage he offers Portia life for Antonio’s in Act 4 Scene 1. This is also reflected in ‘Cousin Kate’, at first the lord deeply admires the maid, but then uses her as a possession when he takes her as mistress. Finally, both work of literature uses ‘rings’ to show that woman is the property of the man and that man has more power in society; Portia becomes Bassanio’s property when she (“This house, these servants, and this same myself, Are yours- my lord's”) pledges herself to Bassanio by calling him his lord. Men are the only people who are the lord of the house, in the play and in the poem.
In conclusion, ‘Cousin Kate’ shows that women had less social power in the 19th century, because of the gender inequality that operated at that time. Also, women were restricted by men, which is also shown in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and ‘A married state’. So ‘Cousin Kate’ explores the treatment of women by underlining how dependant women were on men in the nineteenth century. By being cast aside by the lord, the maid loses the lord’s financial support and she ends up in the ‘dust’ whereas Kate ends up in the ‘gold’. This contrast between the narrator and Kate brings an imagery into the reader’s mind that tells him/her that the social position women also affected how they were treated. Kate could ‘sing’ because she was rich, but the narrator had to ‘howl’ because she had no money (as she was a abandoned mistress and so no man would marry her) which is symbolises that the maid was not respected by society when Kate was (that is why Kate is described as good and pure but the narrator is described by the society to be an outcast (stanza 4). The repetition of ‘good and pure’ suggests and ‘outcast’ is meant to make the difference in the treatment of the two women distinct.
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