The Covert Case of Higher Law in E.D.E.N. Southworth’s
The Hidden Hand
Melissa J Lingle-Martin
Halfway through E.D.E.N. Southworth’s
best-selling novel The Hidden Hand (1859), the popular heroine Capitola
Black exclaims, “Let me have a hearing!” (316). She demands a hearing for all women
suffering under the heavy hand of nineteenth-century paternalistic law, which,
while claiming to protect women, oppressed them. To many readers, Capitola seems a pioneering
"New Woman," one who rebels against the constrictions of the domestic
sphere. However, Capitola’s feminist
exploits are described so melodramatically as to seem absurd. While Capitola may indeed challenge the
patriarchal gender conventions of her day, I suggest that Capitola’s outrageous
acts of defiance are merely that, outrageous acts, decoy propaganda providing
cover for Southworth’s more revolutionary and
rebellious message about the necessity for systemic legal reform, for tempering
justice with humanity.
While Capitola clamors for a “hearing,” Southworth
strategically parallels her outlandish performances with the more subtle legal
and political maneuvers of her prospective husband, Herbert Greyson. Through an examination of this juxtaposition,
I illuminate Southworth’s contributions to antebellum