Mary Hamilton (transvestite)

In 1746 Hamilton was brought before the summer Quarter Sessions in Taunton, Somerset.[4] According to the local newspaper report, "There was a great Debate for some Time in Court about the Nature of her Crime, and what to call it, but at last it was agreed that she should be charged with fraud."[3]

In 1746, Fielding anonymously published[6] a sensational pamphlet, The Female Husband, that gives a different account of Hamilton's life.[7] The author claims that he had his information "from the mouth" of Hamilton herself. However, it is likely that he never met the woman he satirized in his work.[8] He says that she was born in 1721 on the Isle of Man, the daughter of a former army sergeant who had married a woman of property on the island. She had been brought up in the strictest principles of virtue and religion, but was seduced into "vile amours" by her friend Anne Johnson, an enthusiastic Methodist, and "transactions not fit to be mention'd passed between them". When Anne leaves her for a man, Hamilton seeks another female lover. She dresses as a man and pretends to be a Methodist preacher. She meets Mrs. Rushford, a wealthy 68-year-old widow who takes her to be a lad of about 18. Tempted by the money she will get as a "husband", Hamilton marries Mrs. Rushford. According to Fielding, she was able to deceive her bride by means "which decency forbids me even to mention". However, the bride eventually discovers Hamilton's sex, and Hamilton is forced to flee.

Hamilton uses various other aliases to marry other women, but is repeatedly forced to flee when the ruse is discovered. In at least three instances she lived for some time unnoticed by her married spouse. Finally, posing as a doctor, she marries Mary Price, a beautiful 18-year-old girl. The marriage is apparently happy until, while Hamilton is visiting Glastonbury, she is recognised by someone from a previous "marriage". Mary cannot believe it, but her mother ensures that Hamilton is arrested and prosecuted. She is sentenced to imprisonment and to four public whippings in the market towns of Somerset. Fielding claims that "on the very evening she had suffered the first whipping, she offered the gaoler money, to procure her a young girl to satisfy her most monstrous and unnatural desires."[9]

Fielding's text was re-published with alterations in 1813, again anonymously, as The surprising adventures of a female husband! Containing the whimsical amours, curious incidents, and diabolical tricks of Miss M. Hamilton, alias Mr. G. Hamilton, alias Minister Bentley, Mr. O'Keefe, alias Mrs. Knight, the Midwife, &c ...[10] This lesser-known version has many alterations including a more sensationalized title and changes to the historical and cultural context.[7] The pamphlet was inexpensive and more than likely purchased by both men and women of different social statuses. Fielding exaggerated and fictionalized parts of the story in order to keep the audience interested and to entice people to read who might not be interested in erotic fiction.[7]

Something interesting about Fielding's version of The Female Husband was his use of pronouns. When Hamilton is passing as a male, Fielding uses 'he/him', a tactic which might seem to cast the author as complicit in the deception.[11] In Fielding's version the reader can be confused by the use of gender: "She had not been long in this city, before she became acquainted with one Mary Price, a girl of about eighteen years of age, and of extraordinary beauty. With this girl, hath this wicked woman since her confinement declared, she was really as much in love, as it was possible for a man ever to be with one of her own sex." [12] Fielding's use grammar here confuses the gender issue; both 'man' and 'her' refer back to Hamilton, or the 'wicked woman' speaking to Fielding from her jail cell. However, in the pamphlet published in the 19th century, the author makes a point of correcting this ambiguity, often adding italics to emphasize the pronoun choice.[11] Not only does the nineteenth-century pamphlet consistently refer to Hamilton with a female pronoun, the author draws attention to the choice by using italics which are only used when a masculine pronoun would be indicated by Hamilton's masculine persona.[11] While in earlier text Fielding does play with the idea that women might find Hamilton attractive because of her femininity, whenever her 'sex' is discovered in his pamphlet, the relationship abruptly ends and unlike the 19th century author, Fielding more subtly exploits the possibilities of suggestion, and manages at the same time to maintain a tone of moral reprimand.[11] It has been argued that Fielding merged the conventions of the criminal biographies that were so popular in his time, with those of the comic marriage plot (a staple of drama that was slowly gaining ground in fiction as well).[13]

Prosecutions involving women disguising themselves as men, and often marrying other women, were regularly reported since the seventeenth century and continued on into the eighteenth.

• 1694: Anthony à Wood writes in a letter:

...appeared at the King's Bench in Westminster hall a young woman in man's apparel, or that personated a man, who was found guilty of marrying a young maid, whose portion he had obtained and was very nigh of being contracted to a second wife. Divers of her love letters were read in court, which occasion'd much laughter. Upon the whole she was ordered to Bridewell to be well whipt and kept to hard labour till further order of the court.

• 1720: Sarah Ketson took on the alias John and attempted to defraud a woman named Ann Hutchinson into marriage. She was convicted.
• 1759: Sarah Paul, going by the alias Samuel Bundy, was convicted and sent to Southwark Bridewell for tricking a woman into marrying her and defrauding the woman of her money and apparel. Although in Paul's case the wife, Mary Parlour, brought up the charges it appears to be under community pressure. Parlour, in fact, knew of Paul's sex and originally chose to continue their relationship. It was neighbors who inspected the nature of Parlour and Paul's relationship, suspecting that they had not consummated the marriage, and found out Paul was performing as a man. Parlour failed to appear at trial, resulting in the magistrate discharging Paul, but not before he ordered her masculine clothing to be burned.[15]

In 1829 it was widely reported that another female husband, James Allen, had successfully evaded detection and prosecution for 21 years.[16][17][18] He had married Abigail Allen (née Naylor) in 1807 at St Giles' Church, Camberwell.[19] It was only under autopsy at St Thomas' Hospital, London, that his sex was discovered to be female.[20] His wife declared she was "entirely ignorant of the fact of the said James Allen being a female".[21]