Charles Hamilton (female husband)

Hamilton was born in Somerset and grew up in Scotland, the child of William and Mary Hamilton. At the age of 14, Hamilton began wearing male clothes borrowed from her brother. Hamilton studied with two doctors during her apprenticeship. One of them was Dr. Edward Green, who presented as an "operator and occulist" but was known as a mountebank. Hamilton helped Green to produce the medical compounds, collect the needed supplies and sell the cures for various illnesses ranging from cancer, leprosy, fistulas and scurvy. At this time, quack itinerant doctors were sometimes well considered, and Dr Green even offered his services as poor relief to cure various illnesses and disorders, including fistula, being paid two guineas.[3]

After serving Dr Edward Green two to three years, Hamilton was employed by Dr Finley Green for the last year of apprenticeship.[3] Hamilton then worked independently as a quack doctor, travelling and selling medicine and medical advice in southwest England, dressed in "man's apparel": ruffles, breeches, and a periwig. During this period, the Jacobite rising of 1745 against the House of Hanover had occurred. In response, Parliament passed the Dress Act 1746, which forbade the wearing of highland dress in Scotland. Hamilton's clothes were viewed as European in contrast to highland styles, which could also be seen as a cultural conscious choice.[3] Travelling meant that Hamilton could easily change location in case of suspicion, and the work provided a decent living.[3]

At one point, Hamilton rented a room to a widow named Mary Creed. Hamilton became involved with her niece Mary Price. On 16 July 1746 Charles Hamilton married Mary Price in Wells, Somerset.[3] The couple travelled together for two months, before Mary Price decided she had been cheated upon into believing Hamilton was a man, and she reported her husband to the authorities in Glastonbury.[7] Hamilton was arrested and tried for fraud.[3] Before that, the couple are reported to have had sexual intercourse several times involving penetration,[3] and historians have questioned how that could be possible. Explanations range from stating that Price was a virgin ignorant of sexual matters, and that Hamilton may have used dildos or their hands during the intercourse to penetrate her, the practice leaving Price satisfied for months before she began questioning her husband's manhood.[3]

In 1746, Hamilton was brought before the summer Quarter Sessions in Taunton, Somerset.[8][9] 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."[5] At the time of the trial, there was no clear legal procedure to prosecute such cases. The records show that it was not so much the fact that Hamilton dressed and worked as a man that was a problem, but rather the fact of having deceitfully contrived penetrative sex.

Hamilton was charged under the vagrancy act of 1744. This act was meant to prosecute lack of employment or deceitful attitudes, mostly related to deceitful ways of acquiring money. However, the charges retained against people prosecuted for vagrancy were vague and diverse, they were seen as a way to maintain order by restricting mobility and consolidating gender and sexual norms that were not precisely named.[10][11][3] In fact Hamilton was detained with men charged with crimes of bastardy or concerning settlement under the custody of William Hodges. The authorities were concerned about ruling over the mobility and sexual lives of strangers to the community, concerned about them taking their responsibilities with the women and children that these men had. Hamilton's case was the only one not involving paternity, money or bastardy.[3] During the trial, members of Hamilton's community wrote a letter to the clerk asking for severe punishment. They wanted public humiliation and to ensure that Hamilton would never again be able to live as a man.[12]

In 1746, Fielding anonymously published[14] a sensational pamphlet, The Female Husband, that gives a different account of Hamilton's life.[15] Fielding was himself the son of a judge and had trained and worked in law, contributing to the establishment of the London police force.[3] 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.[16] 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."[17]

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 ...[18] This lesser-known version has many alterations including a more sensationalized title and changes to the historical and cultural context.[15] 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.[15]

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.[19] 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."[20] 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.[19] 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.[19] 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.[19] 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).[21]

• Female husband - other cases of female husbands