Mary Astell and her Relation to 18th Century Poets

578 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Old English poetry

Mary Astell and her Relation to 18th Century Poets
In eighteenth century England, women were stripped of all their assets upon marriage. In short, when a woman married she became the property of her husband. Subjugated and forced to obey a man who may or may not be abusive, violent, or simply unpleasant, these women did not had little choice in the matter. For this reason, none can argue the importance of Mary Astell in the history of women’s liberation. A proto-feminist, Mary Astell penned the groundbreaking essay, “Some Reflections upon Marriage.” However, Mary Astell could be considered harsh, especially when compared to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Anne Finch. Both women agreed with Astell to an extent, but neither believed, as Astell did, that there was no circumstance in which marriage would be a happy state for a woman.
Mary Astell’s essay “Some Reflections Upon Marriage” criticized the institution of marriage so harshly, it seemed to suggest, if not state outright, that no woman with even the smallest semblance of an education would even consider marriage as a viable optio...

Show More
Related

  • My Home My World By Stephanie Coontz Summary

    358 Words  | 1 Pages

    Both Stephanie Coontz in “Great expectations” and Archena Bhalla in “My home, my world” address the issue about marriage and arranged marriages. While Stephanie mostly speaks on couples don’t make marriage their top priority and don’t last for a long time. And she gives an example by saying that “People nowadays don’t respect the marriage vowels.” She also believes that in the 18th and 19th centuries, conventional wisdom among middle-class men was the kind of woman you’d want for a wife was incapable of sexual passion which has changed in the 20th century. Also that marriage was viewed in the prospective that work relationship in which passion took second place to practicality and intimacy never was important with male. Bhalla speaks

    Read More

  • The Tone Of Wollstonecraft's On Making An Agreeable Marriage

    267 Words  | 1 Pages

    The angry tone of Wollstonecraft’s “Vindication of the Rights of Women” significantly contrasts with the cautionary tone of Austen’s “On Making an Agreeable Marriage,” seeking to reform society rather than guide people to live in that society. When Austen describes the drawbacks of loveless marriage, she writes that “Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without affection” (Austen 72-73). Austen uses “preferred” and “endured” to warn her niece against marrying too quickly, creating a cautionary tone. Moreover, “anything” emphasizes the miserableness of a marriage without affection, beseeching Austen’s niece to verify her love before diving headfirst into a marriage. In contrast, when demonizing the education system, Wollstonecraft

    Read More

  • Margaret Fuller's View On Women

    602 Words  | 2 Pages

    Margaret Fuller in her essay, The Great Lawsuit: Man verse Men. Woman verse Women, and Fanny Fern in journalistic pieces like “Aunt Hetty on Matrimony” and “Hungry Husbands,” address one of the most confusing issues of the nineteenth century American ‘The Woman Question.” In their works, both authors discus about gender politics, institution of marriage and the difficulties and dynamics of male-female relationships in the twenty-first century.

    Read More

  • Marriage in the 17th Century

    1536 Words  | 4 Pages

    In seventeenth-century England, being married played a far more important social role than it does nowadays. The position of women in seventeenth-century English marriage was dictated by her family relationships, with an importance on the inferiority of women. The law was strongly in favor of the fathers and husbands of women. It was a fact that married women had no financial rights that would make her independent of her husband and that everything that was hers was his. Men also had a right hit their wife’s in this time period without any consequences and sadly it was a common occurrence in marriage. A husband’s dominance or “rule” over his wife and children was pretty much seen as a king’s reign over the people in his country. A woman was regarded as a creature physically, intellectually, morally and even spiritually inferior to a man which gave man had a right to dominate her.1 So this lead to men being able to control their wife like nothing we have ever seen in modern times. Women were waiting on men hand and foot in a soci...

    Read More

  • Victorian Women Dbq Essay

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    The English Woman’s Journal was a monthly feminist periodical that women used to communicate their interests and need for societal reform. A chapter of the periodical recites the story of Elizabeth von Recke; when Elizabeth became a married woman, she also became a troubled woman. Her husband “was accustomed to have his every look and obeyed”(Source D) and refused her of the simplest pleasures, such as being able to visit her acquaintances. Women were to marry for financial stability since they were not able to work outside of the home; their husbands served as the head of the household and dominated all of the family's affair and could deny their wives basic

    Read More

  • Mary Astell Thesis

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the essay, Some Reflections upon Marriage, Mary Astell addresses happy marriages and failed marriage. She talks about how money is based on some marriages in England and how some marriages do not last because they lack the emotional concept that comes with marriage. Astell also addresses the viewpoint of men and what marriages mean to them. She says that some men marry for love and some marry because of the women’s appearance. But, she addresses the women opinion on marriage and how some women marry because it’s the norm and it’s not a necessity. Astell states, “If marriage be such a blessed state, how comes it, may you say, that there are so few happy marriages? Now in answer to this, it is not to be wondered that so few succeeded; we should rather be surprised to find so many do, considering how imprudently men engage, the motives they act by, and the very strange conduct they overserve throughout” (Astell 2421). In this quote Astell addresses the how can marriage be a happy thing that happens in life, but there are so few marriages that last long and where both men and women are happy in the marriage. She argues that a happy marriage will not last because of the man’s

    Read More

  • Analysis Of To The Ladies

    845 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lady Chudleighs’s “To the Ladies” exhibits a remorseful stance on the concept of joining holy matrimony. Chudleigh’s usage of metaphoric context and condescending tone discloses her negative attitude towards the roles of a wife once she is married. It is evident that Mary Chudleigh represents the speaker of the poem and her writing serves a purpose to warn single women not go get married and a regretful choice to women who are.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Why I Want A Wife

    422 Words  | 1 Pages

    Judy Brady’s brings attention to the oppression of women, by their husband, and the cultural acceptance and expectation of this mistreatment. Brady’s calculated emotional appeal, abundance of irony, and cautionary tone throughout her essay, “Why I Want a Wife,” carries her belief of women being the sole contributor to the husband’s success, and alerts her female audience of the abuse, with hope that they will ultimately defy the normalized exploitation of women.

    Read More

  • The Differences Between Dorian Solot’s and Stephanie Coontz’s Essays

    1619 Words  | 4 Pages

    Is marriage really important? There is a lot of controversy over marriage and whether it is eminent. Some people believe it is and some people believe it is not. These opposing opinions cause this controversy. “On Not Saying ‘I do’” by Dorian Solot explains that marriage is not needed to sustain a relationship or a necessity to keep it healthy and happy. Solot believes that when a couple gets married things change. In “For Better, For Worse”, Stephanie Coontz expresses that marriage is not what is traditional in society because it has changed and is no longer considered as a dictator for people’s lives. The differences between these two essays are the author’s writing style and ideas.

    Read More

  • The Variety of Feminisms and their Contributions to Gender Equality by Judith Lorber

    1123 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even to present day, the belief of societies being male-centered still stands. Yet, during the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was clearer that the patriarchal lifestyle was happening. Married women of the era were seen as ‘property’ to their husbands. Robert, Edna’s lover from The Awakening, described her as, “-not free; you were Mr. Pontellier’s wife. I couldn’t help loving you… so long as I went away from y...

    Read More

  • Woman in the Nineteenth Century, by Margaret Fuller

    1136 Words  | 3 Pages

    In her essay, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller discusses the state of marriage in America during the 1800‘s. She is a victim of her own knowledge, and is literally considered ugly because of her wisdom. She feels that if certain stereotypes can be broken down, women can have the respect of men intellectually, physically, and emotionally. She explains why some of the inequalities exist in marriages around her. Fuller feels that once women are accepted as equals, men and women will be able achieve a true love not yet known to the people of the world.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication Of The Rights Of Women

    1155 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Wollstonecraft’s radical essay, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, she discusses women’s issues including marriage and the right for an education equal to that of a man’s. A part of her argument for equal education is that women should have the right to develop their own form of reason without influence from other sources. The importance of developing reason is so that women will not be overly inclined towards emotionalism and develop superficial ways of thinking (46). Since women are uneducated they, unfortunately, blindly submit to men 's power. This leads to another of Wollstonecraft’s points: that marriage is a form of prostitution (48). Wollstonecraft was mocked in her time, but was later recognized as a founder of modern feminism.

    Read More

  • Mary Wollstonecraft & Her Legacy

    1519 Words  | 4 Pages

    Following the Enlightenment, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the feminist novel The Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In this novel she applied rights to females that had formerly been reserved to males, such as unalienable rights. Her novel impacted different areas of society. Wollstonecraft called for the advancement of women’s rights in areas such as education, work, and politics. She also proposes that women are just as capable as men and have a far greater purpose than simply to be pleasing to men. Her novel became a bestseller in the summer of 1792.1 After reading her novel, many women applied her views to their lives to the greatest extent possible in the time period in which they lived. Mary Wollstonecraft’s novel was the first major stand for women’s rights creating the feminist movement in Great Britain and consequently the Americas.

    Read More

  • Women And Crime Essay

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    Men and women led very much different lives, it was the idea that men belonged to the public sphere and women to the domestic sphere. It was at a time when men went to work to generate income for the family, socialised and held political power, whereas women on the other hand were confined to the home and left to raise the children, as well as doing the cooking and cleaning. Despite women’s roles mainly revolving around the home, their duties were important none the less and were considered as crucial for society by the Victorians, as demonstrated by Martin Wiener who states that a wife’s behaviour and character became more crucial than ever to the happiness and viability of the home . It was here in the nineteenth century that the ideal women was based on ‘Mary’- the ‘divine guide, p...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Unhappy Marriage And Domestic Violence

    1504 Words  | 4 Pages

    In “Unhappy Marriages” James Hall’s wife…“He being then (as he all his lifetime was) stingy, niggardly, and mean spirited, allowed her little or nothing to live on.” (Unhappy Marriages, 10) Men were considered perfect specimens, masters in not only dress, but in religion as well. While women on the other hand were supposed to obey, be modest, chaste and to not speak much. Mary Hobry’s story tells of a similar situation, of hopelessness and “finding herself in this hopeless condition, and under frequent temptations of putting some violent end to her misfortunes.” (Unhappy Marriages, 2) Yet, her neighbours see her “as a violent disorderly woman and her husband as a weak and harmless man.” (Unhappy Marriages, 1) Nonetheless, she committed petty treason by murdering her husband who is her superior. The law states that women are unable to claim benefit of clergy because she is a women and it is an unforgivable offence. Unlike George Whalley who could claim benefit of clergy when he describes how “she raved at me, and abused me, and I, in the violence of my passion, did this unhappy murder.” (Unhappy Marriages, 8) Women in England has very little social and political rights which did not allow them to be free from marriage to abusive husbands even if there was cruelty involved. They had to pleased adultery as well, unlike males who only had to plead

    Read More

More about Mary Astell and her Relation to 18th Century Poets

Open Document