Sex (and money) in the Colonies

What struck me as I read Stoler was her suggestion that sex in the colonies was closely linked with the economics of colonial control. Stoler posits that it was the practical monetary concerns of keeping the costs of maintenance of expatriate families down that led (amongst other reasons) to the practice of concubinage. However, the practical use of European wives as household managers subsequently promoted marriage with European wives (besides having resulted from heightened fears of resistance and the implications of metissage on white prestige). Relating this to Burmese Days, Elizabeth can be read as the ultimate exemplication of the sexual "laws" that had been set in place to contain capital in the coloniser's hands.

Elizabeth’s gaze upon Flory is coloured by socio-economic terms (significance of her tortoise-shell glasses!) He appeals to her only when he shows mastery over the colonised space, by driving away the bull and by hunting, fitting her notions of a respectable "pukka" or first class sahib. She casts him aside when 'the Honourable' Verrall comes along, as his 700 rupees have become pittance in comparison. Elizabeth moreover is dreaded by Flory's servants, unable to pilfer money for themselves when she becomes mistress. Therefore Elizabeth's conflation with capital control, which exemplifies colonial marriage's conflation with capitalism in colonial discourse.

We the readers therefore clearly see the irony and deluded-ness of Flory in seeking "someone who would love Burma as he loved it and hate it as he hated it...Someone who understood him: a friend"(73) in someone like Elizabeth, a born "Burra memsahib"(300). These attributes Flory seeks in a wife are ultimately unprofitable as it jeopardises White Prestige and subsequently capital dominance. Therefore it is significant that it is women and their links with capital who lead to Flory's downfall. Hla May's screams for money "Pike-san-pay-like!" makes him poor “Porley” and ultimately destroys him socially and Elizabeth rejects him as a result. Flory is punished as he has become an “unprofitable” “cog in the wheels” (69) of colonialism. In light of this, Flory’s earlier opinion that "What shall it profit a man if he save his own soul and lose the whole world?" (80) can be read as a gospel of colonial discourse.