Companionship vs. Isolation

The women of eighteenth-century England tended to agree that they were oppressed and marginalized. Because of this, many women avoided male companionship as a means of dealing with this oppression. Although this method of coping with the realities of life as an eighteenth-century woman seemed desirable to many, some did not agree and sought male companionship.

The reasons for this disagreement varied. At the beginning of the century, for example, many women were influenced by the writings of Mary Astell and thus believed that marriage itself was a problem to be avoided. Other women rejected the notions of Astell and longed for companionship, although their reasoning differed.

Mary Chudleigh’s “The Resolve” provides the reader with a poet inclined to agree with Astell to a large extent, if not entirely. Chudleigh seeks to avoid companionship and instead pursue reason and virtue. In fact, throughout the poem Chudleigh never even mentions companionship as something she is pursuing. Perhaps the reason for this may be her own profound loneliness, despite being married herself. Additionally, Chudleigh may have been inclined to believe this because of her own strong opinions about the treatment of married women in 1701. Chudleigh explained to friend Elizabeth Thomas her feelings:

I was troubled to see women made the Jest of every Pretender to Wit and expos’d by Scurrilous Pamphlet rather than a Sermon to the Malicious Censures of invidious Detractors of Men, who think they cannot be obedient Wives, without being Slaves, nor pay their Husbands that Respect they owe them, without sacrificing their Reason to their Humor (Lonsdale 1).

It is clear that Chudleigh rejected contemporary views on women, particularly in reference to submissio...

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...o mine” and with whom she could be herself completely (Montagu 62). However, she also understood that choosing a man who was sexist, foolhardy, or too stern would be detrimental to that fulfilment. She remarks, “but I hate to cheated and never will buy long years of repentance for moments of joy” (Montagu 62).

Montagu also found fulfilment in waiting for her perfect man, declaring “as long as I have lived chaste, I will keep myself so” (Montagu 63).

Finally, Hester Thrale Piozzi sought companionship so absolutely that she ran off with her perfect man despite the protests of Samuel Johnson as well as her daughters. Her poem “An Ode to Society” is a retreat poem suggesting that she believed England to be a stuffy place where her marriage to the younger Piozzi was not approved of. She praises Venice declaring it to be “clear, unaffected, fond, and free” (Piozzi 391).