of kings with an emphasis on reciprocity.6 Despite the explicit admiration of Charles as possessing “more personal virtues, than perhaps any one Prince recorded in history” (305), an equal emphasis is awarded to the (English) ruler’s function as “the guardian of the liberty and rights, religious, and civil, of his people. This is his true character, and the only foundation of his power” (304). Without going so far as to explicitly condone rebellion, Delany here leaves some ground for the supposition that the breach of duty in one party may justify rebellion in the other. The contrast to his attitude to the parent-child relationship is striking: the concept of absolute obedience appears more resilient in private than in public life (cf. KayKay, Carol 169).
Despite their differences, both AllestreeAllestree, Richard and DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson ground their system of moral duty in a combination of reciprocity7 and patriarchy – the system which Richardson draws on for the moral dilemmas played out in his novels. Hierarchical structures overlay more egalitarian ones of brotherhood (or, in Richardson’s novels, bonding among women), and the authority at the top is envisaged as male and based on fatherhood.8 Reciprocity is equally crucial. Insistence that the breach of duty in one party does not cancel the other’s duty goes hand in hand with the presumption that undutifulness commonly amounts to ingratitude. What is missing in the moral tracts, however, is a detailed response to conflicts of duty, although Allestree and Delany present the individual as enmeshed in a network of obligations. In the case of the former, this network appears particularly complex: alms-giving, for example, is owed on two different grounds: “He that is in poverty and need, must be relieved by him that is in plenty; and he is bound to it, not only in charity, but even in justice” (283; Sunday XIII)9. Similarly, good counsel is due to a spouse, to friends and even enemies (significantly, it is not mentioned as a filial duty10), and, finally, every duty to one’s “neighbour”, and even to one’s self, is tied up with duty to God. With regard to servants, for example, AllestreeAllestree, Richard writes: “God has commanded Servants thus to obey their Masters; and therefore the obedience they pay is to God” (335; Sunday XV). Yet although he acknowledges the possibility that a person in authority may issue “unlawful commands”, and although he insists that these must not be obeyed, he provides little to no framework for dealing with conflicts of duty.
It is, perhaps, more a symptom than a cause of this that the word ‘reciprocity’ so frequently mentioned in Richardson’s novels is used in a two-fold sense. “It is my notion, that one person’s remissness in duty, where there is a reciprocal one, does not absolve the other party from the performance of his”, Harriet Byron writes, commenting on Sir Thomas’s domestic tyranny (1:315). She makes a similar point when discussing Lady L.’s secret correspondence with her later husband: “Ought you not to have done your duty, whether your father did his, or not?” (1:333). The severity of the remark is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it is not addressed to Lady L. directly, but occurs as an apostrophe in a letter to Lucy Selby. In contrast, Lovelace makes a very different use of the term. Thus, when he writes to Belford concerning his uncle Lord M.’s public criticism of him, he comments: “He is very undutiful, as thou knowest. Surely, I may say so; since all duties are reciprocal” (415). Clearly, what differentiates the usage of ‘reciprocity’ by the heroine of Grandison and the villain of Clarissa, respectively, is more than their good or bad intentions. Rather, their concepts of reciprocity are different. For Harriet, reciprocal duty means a stable relationship between two parties who are each obliged to do some specified good to the other. For Lovelace, reciprocity means an exchange of goods as in a contract. Thus, if his uncle “rave[s]” at him, he may be called undutiful in return (415). Whether he talks of duties or of voluntary benefits, exchange is at the heart of Lovelace’s concept of reciprocity, and he takes care to be the one who has more to give. Significantly, he is too proud to accept financial help – and, in consequence, “control” – from his relations (50).
The sociologist Alvin GouldnerGouldner, Alvin W. provides the vocabulary to problematize the system of reciprocity underlying AllestreeAllestree, Richard’s and DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson’s as well as Richardson’s works. In his classic article “The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement” (1960), he distinguishes between complementarity and reciprocity. A little confusingly, he first enumerates four types of “complementarity”, before specifying that “[p]roperly speaking, complementarity refers only to the first two meanings”, while the last two “involve true instances of reciprocity” (57). I quote his definitions and examples in some detail because their relevance to Richardson’s works (as well as to Allestree’sAllestree, Richard and Delany’sDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson) becomes thus immediately apparent:
Complementarity 1 may mean that a right (x) of Ego against Alter implies a duty (- x) of Alter to Ego. […] The interesting sociological questions, however, arise only when issues of empirical substance rather than logical implication are raised. For example, where a group shares a belief that some status occupant has a certain right, say the right of a wife to receive support from her husband, does the group in fact also share a belief that the husband has an obligation to support the wife? Furthermore, even though rights may logically or empirically imply duties, it need not follow that the reverse is true.
Complementarity 2 may mean that what is a duty (- x) of Alter to Ego implies a right (x) of Ego against Alter. On the empirical level, while this is often true, of course, it is also sometimes false. For example, what may be regarded as a duty of charity or forbearance […] need not be socially defined as the right of the recipient. (56)
Intriguingly, GouldnerGouldner, Alvin W.’s two examples concern cases very much at the heart of Richardson’s work. Indeed, it is of vital importance to differentiate between ‘right’ and ‘duty’. Although, as Gouldner implies, there are many cases when the right of one party and the duty of the other amount to the same thing, such a connection is by no means inevitable.
Adam SmithSmith, Adam notes the distinction in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, using the “trite example” of “a highwayman” who, “by the fear of death, obliges a traveller to promise him a certain sum of money. Whether such a promise, extorted in this manner by unjust force, ought to be regarded as obligatory, is a question that has been very much debated” (330; VII.iv.9). One of those who has “debated” it is Lovelace. Beginning to suspect Clarissa of a lie, he complains to Belford that “it is a sad thing for good people to break their word when it is in their power to keep it”. Belford, of course, may have an obvious reply to this, so Lovelace continues: “You perhaps will ask: What honest man is obliged to keep his promise with a highwayman? for well I know your unmannerly way of making comparisons: but I say, every honest man is” (1269). This convenient conclusion – which binds the “honest” Clarissa but not the “profligate wretch Lovelace” (1270) – is, once more, enforced by the concept of reciprocal duty: “can my not doing my duty, warrant another for not doing his? Thou wilt not say it can” (1270). As long as Lovelace can demand that Clarissa exercise GouldnerGouldner, Alvin W.’s “forbearance”, it does not matter that he does not deserve it.
Even in cases where “a right (x) of Ego against Alter implies a duty (- x) of Alter to Ego” and vice versa, the emphasis is often on only one of these terms. The “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, for example, implies, by listing the essential rights of each individual, a corresponding duty of each individual (as well as institutions) to respect and guarantee such rights (evidenced, on the linguistic level, by the frequent appearance of the word “shall”). However, the choice of the term ‘right’ rather than ‘duty’ emphasizes the inalienability of these rights and, potentially, the privilege to enforce them. In contrast, AllestreeAllestree, Richard’s and DelanyDelany, Patrick, correspondent of Richardson’s emphasis on duty not only highlights the individual’s responsibility, but frequently and explicitly comments on the fact that such duty must not be knit to any corresponding rights. In The Whole Duty of Man, for example, unconditional obedience to rulers is enforced by the following comment: “And ’tis observable that these precepts were given at a time, when those powers were Heathens, and cruel persecutors of Christianity; to shew us that no pretence of the wickedness of our Rulers can free us from this duty” (2[90]; Sunday XIV). The