Emotions, Ethics and Sociality in Dickens's Sketches of Young Couples (Critical Essay‪)‬

The diffusion of Dickens's interests when he published Sketches of Young Couples in early 1840, (1) together with the slight nature of this collection, suggest that these sketches were far from an artistic priority for the author. Appearing anonymously due to contractual obligations with Richard Bentley, the volume received relatively little critical attention and was dismissed as "humorous," "agreeable" and "a pleasant chatty book" (Chittick 144). Even Dickens himself referred to the publication as "a poor thing of little worth" (Tillotson 43). Despite Dickens's self-deprecation, however, I want to suggest that Sketches of Young Couples warrants further critical attention because, and not in spite, of its apparent ephemerality. (2) Scheduled for publication to coincide with the marriage of Victoria and Albert on February 10, 1840, Sketches of Young Couples appeared at a transitional moment in the history of Victorian sexuality and domesticity. In the cultural reception of the royal marriage, there was often an emphasis on Victoria's personal happiness which suggested the emergence of a new value on the primacy of feelings over politics: even a sovereign's marriage was the domain of private emotions--albeit subject to a very public scrutiny. (3) It is possible, then, to view Sketches of Young Couples as one instance within a broader cultural exploration of companionate marriage, emerging as the dominant form of marriage in an increasingly bourgeois society. Sketches of Young Couples explores the paradox of the married couple as comprised of two individuals: as a relation between two people, the couple is simultaneously a form of sociality and a retreat to a zone of intimacy. In his description of different types of couples, Dickens posits the married couple as, on the one hand, an ethical entity that interacts with a wider social world and, on the other, an ethical relation within itself. Depicting the couple's treatment of each other and their relationships with a range of others (children, relatives, servants, friends and acquaintances), Sketches of Young Couples maps the parameters of ethical or unethical forms of sociality.