Marriage and motherhood in Defoe's "Roxana" and "Moll Flanders"

In Daniel Defoe's Roxana and Moll Flanders, the title characters represent strong and independent women, who survive despite economic hardships. Moll, who seeks advantageous alliances, manipulates the marriage market to find good husbands, while Roxana, who rejects marriage, prefers to be a mistress. Because of these characterizations, many feminist scholars consider Defoe a proto-feminist. In doing so, however, they fail to consider the outcomes of both narratives. Although Moll and Roxana share many similarities, their fates are very different. Moll enters into a happy marriage and acquires a considerable estate, but Roxana's narrative concludes with her pain and misery. These different endings demonstrate that Defoe reinforces traditional roles for women, rather than advocating their independence from them. He rewards Moll for her decision to remain in the marriage market, but he punishes Roxana for her rejection of it.