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Sat 03 Mar 2007Lock up your heiresses, the Irish are aboutHistory'There is one thing you can tell Mr Townsend when you see him again," says rich Dr Sloper to his daughter in Henry James's Washington Square. "That if you marry without my consent, I don't leave you a farthing of money." Catherine Sloper represents the archetypal heiress: innocent, susceptible, a prey to the first smooth-talking fortune hunter who crosses her path. She also conforms to Anthony Malcomson's definition, being in his terms "a bride who brought with her assets which far outweighed any return that her husband's family was obliged to make". In other words, on marriage her income would be superior to that of the groom.