ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the threat of the guardian/ward marriage to the orphan's body, emphasizing the legal concept of ravishment of ward. Many novels emphasize the guardians attempt to exploit the exchange of the orphan for personal gain, as seen in the formulaic fiction such as The Perfidious Guardian. The chapter charts the novels attempt to plot a new resolution to guardian/ward desire; it charts the orphan plots varying attempts to redefine economic ravishment as sexual ravishment. Henry Mackenzies The Man of the World provides a particularly vivid example of the orphan plots reconfiguration of legal ravishment of the ward into incestuous ravishment of the orphan's body. The novels first half focuses on Miss Milner, the female ward, and her growing love for and eventual marriage to her guardian, Dorriforth. Zwinger links virtue, and the daughters need for guidance in her attempt to secure it, to titillationa dynamic lying at the heart of the ravishment-defined guardian/ward relationship.
