Dwindling into a Wife: Women and the Culture of Marriage in Britain, 1760-1820

This dissertation examines women and marriage ideology in courtship novels of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, specifically novels by Sarah Scott, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Austen. Instead of focusing on the heroines of these courtship novels, however, this project explores the marginalized female roles that orbit the courtship narrative: the chaperon, the mother-in-law, the governess, and the spinster. These four roles demonstrate the broad scope of female functions and services in the period while also calling into question the ideology that attempts to limit women only to the role of wife. The chaperon reveals the work necessary to succeed in courtship, which challenges the idea that courtship and marriage are easy and natural; the mother-in-law challenges both the culture of marriage and patriarchal ideology more generally through her maternal authority, which conflicts with male authority; the governess demonstrates the contradiction of teaching her pupils skills that did not lead to her own success on the marriage market; and the spinster calls into question the ideology that the role of wife is inevitable and mandatory. While the narratives of these four roles merit recuperation and attention in their own right, more significantly, this analysis offers a more complete and nuanced examination of the culture of marriage, by exploring alternatives and challenges to marriage, revealing the actual cultural roles of marginalized leisure-class women, and identifying the ways in which the ideology of marriage was both maintained and challenged in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England. Ultimately, this study exposes the cultural pressures and processes by which the concepts of marriage have been shaped and, at times, distorted

Determination of Radiative Lifetimes In the 3d(10)np(2)p Sequence of Neutral Copper By Time-resolved Vuv Laser-spectroscopy

Lifetimes in the 3d(10)np(2)P sequence in neutral copper were measured by time-resolved laser spectroscopy. Excitation from the ground state was performed with pulsed laser radiation in the; vuv spectral region, generated by resonant sum-difference four-wave mixing in krypton gas. The lifetimes were evaluated from recorded optical transients. For the np(2)P(J) states we find the following: tau(n = 6, 5 = 3/2) = 5.2(8) ns, tau(6, 1/2) = 25.1(10) ns, tau(7; 3/2) = 15.0(12) ns, tau(7, 1/2) = 4.0(8) ns, tau(8,3/2) = 31(2) ns, tau(8, 1/2) = 15.8(12) us, tau(9, 3/2) = 123(6) ns, and tau(9, 1/2) = 51(6) ns. The data are compared with a recent multiconfiguration Hartree-Fock calculation

Measurements of excited state lifetimes and oscillator strengths in Pt II

We report on radiative lifetime measurements of short-lived states in singly ionized platinum by excitation with pico-second laser pulses and subsequent time-resolved detection. The upper levels were populated from metastable ion levels in a laser-generated plasma using radiation in the UV/VUV spectral range. The following lifetimes were obtained: tau(5d(8)(F-3(4))6p(1/2), J = 7/2) = 3.9(3) ns, tau(5d(8)(F-3(4))6p(3/2), J = 9/2) = 3.5(3) ns and tau(5d(8)(F-3(3))6p(1/2), J = 5/2) = 2.6(3) ns. By using relative intensities of the lines found in the literature, oscillator strengths were determined

Two-color Time-resolved Spectroscopy of Helium Using High-order Harmonics

The radiative lifetime of the 1s2p(1)P state of helium is measured in a two-colour ionization experiment with a 5% accuracy. The state is excited by the 13th harmonic of a tunable 80 ps laser and ionized by a synchronous ultraviolet laser, with a variable time delay. This experiment demonstrates that the high harmonics generated in a jet of rare gas exposed to an intense laser field provide a tunable short-pulse xuv source ideally suited for pump/probe type of studies and, in particular, short lifetime measurements

Experimental Pd II oscillator strengths and the palladium abundance in the HgMn-type star chi Lupi

Experimental oscillator strengths for 19 ultraviolet lines of Pd II have been derived from measurements of line intensities in calibrated Fourier transform spectra, combined with picosecond-pulse laser measurements of radiative lifetimes. Five of these 19 lines, in addition to other Pd nr lines, are present in Hubble Space Telescope/Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph echelle spectra of the chemically peculiar HgMn star chi Lupi, yielding a palladium abundance of log (N-Pd) = +5.0, which is 3.3 dex above the solar abundance. Theoretical oscillator strengths have been calculated for all strong ultraviolet transitions associated with the lowest odd-parity configuration of Pd II

Interference effects in two-photon ATI by multiple orders high harmonics with random or locked phases

We numerically study 2-photon processes using a set of harmonics from a Ti:Sapphire laser and in particular interference effects in the Above Threshold Ionization spectra. We compare the situation where the harmonic phases are assumed locked to the case where they have a random distribution. Suggestions for possible experiments, using realistic parameters are discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, LaTe

Determination of radiative lifetimes of excited states in neutral gold using time-resolved vacuum-ultraviolet laser spectroscopy

Natural radiative lifetimes of the states in the highly perturbed 5d10np 2P sequence in neutral gold, Au i, for n=69, as well as of four of the perturbing 5d96s6p 2P states, have been measured. This was done by direct excitation from the ground state with short-pulse vacuum-ultraviolet laser light and time-resolved detection of the laser-induced fluorescence. We found the lifetimes to be (6p 2P1/2)=6.2(2) ns, (6p 2P3/2)=4.7(2) ns, (7p 2P1/2)=6.4(7) ns, (7p 2P3/2)=5.3(7) ns, (8p 2P1/2)=63(3) ns, (8p 2P3/2)=24(2) ns, (9p 2P1/2)=28(2) ns, and (9p 2P3/2)=75(4) ns. For the perturbing states (two states of each term have been observed) we found (2P1/2, 60 983.05 cm-1)=17.5(10) ns, (2P1/2, 62 540.65 cm-1)=6.7(7) ns, (2P3/2, 58 826.30 cm-1)=2.1(15) ns, and (2P3/2, 63 005.62 cm-1)=2.7(15) ns. Furthermore, we have investigated the hyperfine structure of the 6p 2P3/2 state. © 1994 The American Physical Society