ABSTRACT

Charles Reade defined the term ‘Domestic’ as the ‘Latin for “Tame”. Ex. “Domestic fowl”, “domestic drama”, “story of domestic interest”’.3 Reade thus implied that ‘domestic’ fiction was, by definition, ‘tame’ – or limited – in both scope and interest. This chapter will extend Reade’s notion of taming – or domestication – to women’s hair, and show how its representation in male ‘domestic’ fiction marked the heroine’s body as destined for domesticity, and served to control and subdue her in order to contain and neutralize the threat of unmanageable female assertiveness.