_Feminist and Anti-Feminist Tendencies among the English Augustans._
In studying the march of feminism among the two rival nations on either
side the Channel, one cannot help being struck by the remarkable
lateness of anything resembling a feminist movement in England. That
the women of mediaeval England were looked down upon, not only on
account of their inferior muscular strength, but also on the score of
their supposed want of mental and moral stability, appears but too
plainly from the numerous scornful references to the weaker sex in
the literature of those days. The Song-collections of the Transition
Period clearly betray the "esprit gaulois" in their brutal estimate
of woman and in the tone of undisguised contempt and ridicule which
prevails whenever women are the theme. The often-repeated story of the
henpecked husband and the shrewish wife contains a warning against
marriage which, although couched in the form of banter, evidently has
its foundation in the general conviction of female depravity. The
early plays with their brawling scenes and stock female characters
were also most unfavourable to women. Nor did the early Renaissance
bring any marked improvement either in the female morals or in the male
appreciation of them, for the satires against women continued with
hardly a refutation. The improvement which resulted in Ascham's days
from the awakening female interest in learning and in the Caroline
period from the introduction into poetry of the Platonic love ideal,
was too partial and too qualified to be permanent, and in later years
the Puritanic ideal of womanhood was an abomination to feminists of
the Wollstonecraft type. But the general estimate of women in England
had never been lower than in the notorious days that followed the
Restoration. In the Middle Ages all influence had been denied them on
the score of their supposed inferiority of understanding and inequality
of temper; the men of the reign of Charles II regarded them merely as
fair dissemblers and utter strangers to the nobler motives, in which
opinion the ladies of the age did all they could to confirm them.
The higher the society in which they moved, the less likely they were
to escape the many vices which prevailed in that age of depravity and
libertinism. There were, of course, the Puritans, who were forced
by circumstances to lead lives of retirement, regarding the vicious
excesses of Whitehall with disgust and jealously guarding their women
against degrading influences. The puritan ideal of womanhood was thus
preserved; but there was no promise for the future in the state of
close confinement and complete submission which the Judaic notions of
Puritanism demanded.
In those days, when night was darkest, a faint glimmer of a coming
dawn was seen. It consisted in some women beginning to take a modest
share in literary pursuits. When late in the seventeenth and early in
the 18th century the modern novel was passing through its preparatory
stage, Mrs. Aphra Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Haywood and some other women
realised that here was a new domain of literature in which woman was
qualified by her fertile imagination and quick power of observation to
excel. Even before the Restoration, the birth of a new social problem
dealing with the relative positions of the sexes was heralded in the
works of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle[15]. However, public
opinion stamped any such efforts--whether conscious or no--as immature,
and therefore doomed to failure.
All through the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century
women were regarded from a purely sexual point of view; they were,
as Mr. Lyon Blease calls it "enveloped in an atmosphere of sex".
Their being judged exclusively by a sexual standard entailed as a
necessary consequence the scornful neglect of those among them who
were disqualified by age or lack of physical attractions. If the lot
of the married women was often a sad one, considering the habitual
inconstancy of husbands, the condition of those who had drawn a blank
in the matrimonial lottery was even more pitiable. Hence that desperate
hunting for husbands which it is among the most creditable performances
of modern feminism to have lessened. It is easy to understand that
it is among forsaken married women and especially among the more
pronounced spinsters that we must look for such elements of female
wisdom and virtue as the barren age affords. The middle-aged mother of
a family was sometimes possessed of a certain hard-acquired dignity;
and to the often bitter experiences of spinsterhood we owe women of
the type of Mary Astell. But contemporary literature, while on the
whole inclined to be lenient towards married women who became "stricken
in years" was almost uniformly severe in dealing with the "old maid of
fiction", and the unmarried female had to await the broader days of
humanitarianism to have her troubles understood and her wrongs righted.
But even the more privileged among the female sex, those who in their
personal attractions possessed some kind of coin, the value of which
masculine opinion was not slow to recognise, were not much better off
than their plain sisters. The prevailing views regarding the place of
women in social life were the direct outcome of the general tendencies
of egoism and materialism by which the age was characterised. Woman was
regarded only in her relations to the male sex, and, what was worse,
woman herself had not yet learned to rebel against the shackles of a
convention of centuries, unquestioningly adopted the male verdict and
tried her hardest to become what the opposite sex wanted her to be.
They found it easy to relinquish all individuality, and live up to the
ideal set up by a degenerated manhood, and readily assumed the vices
which their lack of any sense of moral responsibility prevented them
from recognising as such. This total absence of moral purpose is a
characteristic of the age which was not restricted to women only. The
moral standard had sunk very low indeed, existence among the better
situated seemed exclusively devoted to the pursuit of pleasure with
all its attendant vices. From the male standpoint this view of life
determined the esteem in which the female sex was held. The eighteenth
century "beau" regarded woman only as an instrument of animal passion,
which hypocrisy tried very successfully to gild over with a varnish of
mock gallantry that was a remnant of better times of Platonic chivalry,
and aroused the indignation of moralists. This gallantry tried to make
up in extravagance for what it lacked in sincerity. The pursuit of the
object of his passion led the libertine to the most absurd excesses
which were very far removed from a devout worship[16]. Love had become
a grossly sensual passion, and women were treated with exaggerated
ceremony, but with little respect. Men held with Pope that "every
woman is at heart a rake", and treated them accordingly. They laid a
mock siege to what was conventionally called "the female heart" and
when that fortress in an unguarded moment surrendered or was taken
by storm, the conqueror, after enjoying the spoils of his victory,
left the poor victim to pay the penalty of social excommunication and
flaunted his conquest in the face of a society which maintained a
double standard of morality, and in which seduction and adultery on the
part of the male were held to be titles of honour.
To fully understand the eighteenth century interpretation of the
passion of love we have only to scan the pages of that new form of
fiction, the novel, which has supplied us with a truthful and lifelike
picture of the morals and manners of the time. In many of them the
heroine is made the object of libertine attempts which to the twentieth
century reader are absolutely revolting. It is true that she does
not submit to the outrage, but defends her honour as well as she is
able--strange to say, the eighteenth century heroine, apart from a few
females of the picaresque kind, is generally represented as virtuous
and chaste, rather a picture of womanhood as the author liked to
imagine than a faithful one, a circumstance for which the presence of
a moral purpose may account--but the secondary female characters are
often of a frailty which contrasts strongly with it. The "_Memoirs of
a Lady of Quality_" in _Peregrine Pickle_, for instance, are a frank
confession of the most shameless female profligacy, and the outrages
upon decorum and good taste described in them are corroborated by
numerous descriptions of female indecency and wantonness displayed
either in the baths of the fashionable watering-places or at the
masquerades which were in great vogue, giving the female sex ample
opportunity for displaying their charms with an utter want of delicacy.
Nor were the "bucks", "beaux" or "maccaronies" at all inclined to be
particular with regard to the language they used in the presence of
ladies. The obscenity of their conversation aroused the indignation of
Swift's Stella, but upon the whole women were too much accustomed to
the coarseness of male conversation to think of protesting, nor did
their parents or husbands think it necessary to interfere. Besides
which, the dialogue of those novels which constituted their daily
amusement was of much the same kind, and even the works of an Aphra
Behn or a Mrs. Manley were read freely in the presence of young girls
without being considered in the least offensive to feminine delicacy.
The improvement which the latter half of the century witnessed in
this respect was, as we shall see, in no small measure due to female
influence. The Bluestocking circles were largely instrumental in
bringing about this purifying of conversational and literary taste.
The female novelists of the next generation, while following in the
steps of Richardson and Fielding, and imitating their choice of
incidents, do not imitate their revolting coarseness. The stories
of libertinage and violence occur in a much modified form, and the
treatment is less offensive and not unfrequently humorous, taking the
edge off the indelicacy of many a doubtful situation.
The chief literary exponents of female depravity, satirising women for
what they were and hardly allowing an exception to the general rule,
forgetting the part of men in their degraded state, and regarding
the prospect of improvement with a degree of scepticism which has
made them the abomination of feminists, were Alexander Pope and Lord
Chesterfield. Pope's estimate of the sex, contained in the second of
the "_Moral Essays_", and confirmed by numerous allusions in his other
works, ranks him among those who jeer at women in general. Their two
prevailing passions according to him, are "love of pleasure", and "love
of sway":
"Men, some to bus'ness, some to pleasure take,
But every woman is at heart a rake:
Men, some to quiet, some to public strife,
But every lady would be queen for life."
The former he is rather inclined to excuse, for "where the lesson
taught is but to please, can Pleasure be a fault?" But the latter
contains in it the germs of unavoidable wretchedness to the woman who
outlives the power and influence which beauty grants her and whose
punishment consists in finding herself in later years friendless and
neglected, and without the redeeming blessing of a cultivated intellect
and a sensitive heart, which
"... shall grow, while what fatigues the ring
Flaunts and goes down, an unregarded thing."
The many inconsistencies in the female character are passed in review
and scourged with the whip of a satirist who does not care to rack
his brains for means of improvement, but whose egoism revels in the
intellectual delight of scathing ridicule. Women make their very
changeability a means of attracting suitors, they are "like variegated
tulips," showing many colours and attracting chiefly by variety:
"Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create
As when she touched the brink of all we hate."
It was no doubt Pope's intention to run down the entire female sex, but
while uttering the above insinuation, he seems fatally blind to the
very questionable light the successful application of certain female
devices reflected on the contemporary male character!
From a purely feminist point of view, the name of "cold-hearted
rascal", by which Mary Wollstonecraft distinguished the Earl of
Chesterfield, although not altogether deserved--for where his son was
concerned he was anything but "cold-hearted"--may be easily accounted
for. Whenever woman is the subject, his contentions as well as his tone
of uttering them betray a callous, contemptuous cynicism which marks
the man of fashion who "knows the season, when to take occasion by the
hand", and has been taught by the intricacies of diplomacy to regard
women from a purely egoistical standpoint as political weathercocks,
whose undeniable influence may be turned to account, but upon whom
otherwise no judgment can be too severe. There is in his writings no
trace of interest whatever in women for their own sake; despising them
for their weaknesses, he regards them merely as possible instruments by
which his personal ends may be furthered. The morality preached in the
famous "_Letters to his Son_" (written between the years 1739 and 1768,
representing the dawn of the Bluestocking movement) has been severely
and deservedly criticised. Their worst defect as well as their greatest
danger is that while containing a number of maxims which are absolutely
repugnant in their cynicism, they were written for an educational
purpose and pretended to instil the ways of conscious virtue "which
is the only solid foundation of all happiness."[17] Another objection
is that he insisted far too much on "the graces" (i. e. deportment),
while almost forgetting to recommend the more solid acquirements of
the character. Mrs. Chapone complained that he substituted appearances
for the real excellences which she considered more important, and Mrs.
Delany wrote that his letters were generally considered ingenious and
useful as to polish of manners, but very hurtful in a moral sense. "Les
grâces", she added, "are the sum total of his religion." This, and the
fact that he made a point of discussing moral questions of the greatest
importance with a child not yet ten years old and incapable of grasping
their full purport, afterwards made Mary Wollstonecraft turn upon
him with her accustomed vehemence. No doubt she found this education
of deliberate cynicism more difficult to forgive than even his cold
contempt of the female sex.
Chesterfield wanted to perfect his son in what he considered the most
important of arts, to be recommended to both sexes with equal emphasis:
that of pleasing. No man held more by opinion as a means of reaching
aims than he. To read his correspondence one might think the chief aim
of life to be a perfect mastery of the art of "wriggling oneself into
favour", with all its attendant insincerity and duplicity. Such was the
man whose advice the bishop of Waterford asked in respect to the kind
of reading to be permitted to his daughters[18].
When women are the topic, Lord Chesterfield invariably appears at his
worst. Nowhere in literature do we find a lower estimate of the sex and
a more sneeringly insolent ridicule of their foibles. Little is known
about the marriage of young Philip Stanhope, who even forgot to inform
his father of the circumstance, and who died too soon after to test
the truth of his father's teaching that "husband and wife are commonly
clogs upon each other." However, with such a mentor his chances of
happiness in the matrimonial state would have been slight in any case.
In the first place Lord Chesterfield regards women as intellectually
inferior and beneath notice. They are to him only "children of a
larger growth"[19] who seldom reason or act consistently; their best
resolutions being swayed by their inordinate passions, which their
reason is to weak to keep under constant control. Even the so-called
"femme forte",--of which type Catherine the Second was a prominent
representative--was in his eyes only another proof of this statement;
for at bottom all women are Machiavelians and they cannot do anything
with moderation, sentiment always getting the better of reason[20].
They do not appreciate or even understand the language of common sense,
and the proper tone to be adopted in their presence is "the polite
jargon of good company"[21].
His opinion of female morals is not more flattering. Women are capable
of, and ruled by two passions: vanity and love, of which the latter is
made dependent upon the former. "He who flatters them most pleases them
best; and they are most in love with him who they think is the most in
love with them"[22]. They value their beauty--real or imaginary--above
everything, and in this respect "scarce any flattery is too gross for
them to follow".
The above, if true, might be a reason for a man to rather avoid female
company than court it. However, says Chesterfield, low as they are,
we cannot afford to ignore them, for it is not to be denied that they
are a social power. "As women are a considerable, or at least a pretty
numerous part of company; and as their suffrages go a long way towards
establishing a man's character in the fashionable part of the world
(which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes
to make in it), it is necessary _to please_ them". The sole use of
women in Chesterfield's eyes is that they may be turned into a ladder
for social advancement: "here women may be put to some use"; and he
who has discovered the right way of humouring them may serve his own
interest by cultivating their acquaintance and fooling them to the top
of their bent with judicious and cleverly administered flattery. Of all
Chesterfield's insinuations this is certainly the worst.
But how is woman to be pleased? The scheme for social promotion
involves an effort to please on an even more general scale. Women feel
a contempt for men who pass their time in "ruelles", making themselves
their voluntary slaves; they value those most who are held in the
highest esteem among their fellowmen; for this will render their
conquest by a woman worth her while. However, to please men, and gain
influence among them, the concurrence of women is indispensable, and so
forth, ad nauseam.
Practical hints are not wanting either. The best stepping-stones to
fortune are "a sort of veteran women of condition" who, besides having
great experience, feel flattered by the least attention from a young
fellow and in return render him excellent services by pointing out
to him those manners and attentions which pleased and engaged them
when they were in the pride of their first youth and beauty, and are
therefore the most likely to prove effective.
In conclusion, two instances may here be quoted of the excellent
father's recommendable advice to his son in regard to the exploitation
of female sympathies. The first regards that Mme du Bocage whose
name will be mentioned again in connection with her relations to the
Bluestocking circles in England. When young Stanhope was residing in
Paris and frequenting some salons, Lord Chesterfield advised his son to
make the French lady his confidante and confess to her his eagerness
"to please", asking her in true hypocritical fashion to teach him her
secret of pleasing everybody. Offered under different circumstances
this might have been a pretty compliment, coming as it did from the pen
of such a cynic and confirmed womanhater it was about the worst insult
that could be offered to a lady of "esprit" and dignity.
But the second passage is even worse. The exemplary father here
suggests a full scheme for political advancement through the
intermediacy of a lady of unsullied reputation, who was to be courted
and inveigled into granting her concurrence in a manner so beyond words
that we must let the letter speak for itself. "A propos, on m'assure
que Mme de Blot, sans avoir des traits, est joli comme un coeur, et
que nonobstant cela, elle s'en est tenu jusqu'ici scrupuleusement à
son mari, quoiqu'il ait déja plus qu'un an qu'elle est mariée. Elle
n'y pense pas; il faut décrotter cette femme-là. Décrottez vous done
tous les deux réciproquement. Force, assiduités, attentions, regards
tendres, et déclarations passionnées de votre côté produiront au moins
quelque velléité du sien. Et quand une fois la velléité y est, les
oeuvres ne sont pas loin."
Social life in the eighteenth century had indeed sunk to the appalling
depth which such letters as Chesterfield's reveal, through an utter
lack of purpose. The time was entirely void of social interest. At a
time when the French philosophy which had been so largely stimulated by
British example found its way into the assemblies of Paris, awakening a
vivid intellectual interest in thousands of minds and giving birth to a
national thought-life which laid the theoretical foundations not only
of the coming changes in the social order, but also of that glorious
edifice of science of which the nineteenth century was to witness the
rapid growth--English society was content to let things remain as they
were and did not at once respond to the call that came from beyond the
Channel. If England, too, contained a number of social abuses that
were rank and appealed to the justice of Heaven, they did not heed
them. The self-sufficiency thus revealed remained characteristic of the
better classes in England, and was in the majority of cases increased
rather than lessened by the outbreak of the Revolution, when most
Englishmen felt secure in the conviction that in England there were
no great wrongs to be righted. It had its origin in gross selfishness
and coarse materialism, which did not leave the bulk of the nation
an opportunity to realise the miserable condition of the poorer
classes in Ireland,--in England itself there was comparatively little
pauperism in the beginning--or the gross injustice of the prevailing
system of Parliamentary representation, or the cruelty of punishments,
or the abominable condition of the jails in which thousands of small
offenders were abandoned to the horrors of slow and gradual extinction,
or the shame of the execrable system of slavery prevailing in the
colonies. It was not until the second half of the century that the
great humanitarian movement began to make rapid progress; before that
great dawn British society remained undisturbed while pursuing their
round of pleasure which was interrupted only by death. Of the heralds
of a better time, who acted according to their lights, and of whom
some were doomed to failure, while others were to see their efforts
crowned with ultimate success, it is gratifying to think that a fair
percentage were women. If the education of men was sadly inadequate,
that of women was so hopelessly neglected that ladies of quality could
hardly sign their own name. They were, upon the whole, quite content to
remain in ignorance. Their horror of the "femme savante" was such, that
all appearance of even the slightest degree of learning was carefully
avoided. The result was disastrous. Dean Swift can hardly be said to
rank among the defenders of the sex, and yet even he recognised the
absurdity of this utter ignorance. In a letter, dated October 7th
1734, occurring in Mrs. Delany's correspondence, and addressed to
her, he says: "I speak for the public good of this country; because a
pernicious heresy prevails here among the men, that it is the duty of
your sex to be fools in every article except what is merely domestic;
and to do the ladies justice, there are very few of them without a good
share of that heresy, except upon one article, that they have as little
regard for family business as for the improvement of their minds." He
proposes to "carry Mrs. Delany about among his adversaries", and (I
will) "dare them to produce one instance where your _want of ignorance_
makes you affected, pretending, conceited, disdainful, endeavouring to
speak like a scholar, with twenty more faults objected by themselves,
their lovers or their husbands. But I fear your case is desperate, for
I know you never laugh at a jest before you understand it, and I must
question whether you understand a fan, or have so good a fancy at silks
as others; and your way of spelling would not be intelligible."
Only those qualities were considered worth developing which were
calculated to excite desire in the opposite sex. Women were skilled in
the commonplace conversation of the gaming-table, and were taught to
dance and to play the spinet, or the harpsichord, and to say ballads,
regardless of talent. Household duties and needlework were held in less
repute, and the qualities of the mind were utterly disregarded. All
feminine education was deliberately discouraged.[23]
In marriage the wife was completely subjected to the husband's
authority. If he proved inconstant--which was the rule--and transferred
his attentions to other women, it was considered most unwise in the
wife to object, the approved course being to pretend ignorance of the
fact, lest the husband should be displeased at being taken to task by
his inferior. About 1700 Lord Halifax's "_Advice to a Daughter_" was
published; and being the reflections of a man of recognised social
abilities, became a standard-work not only in England, but also on
the other side the Channel, where it was translated into French and
repeatedly quoted with great deference. Viewed in the light of the
conditions then prevailing it must be unreservedly admitted that
the advice is absolutely the best that could be given under the
circumstances. Mr. Lyon Blease's indignation in quoting it, seems
due rather to very natural disgust at the social conditions that
necessitated it, than to the nature of the advice in itself. Lord
Halifax exhorts his daughter to consider that she "lives in a time
which hath rendered some kind of frailties so habitual that they lay
claim to large grains of allowance." This reasoning would seem faulty
to a moralist, but there is more. "This being so, remember that next to
the danger of committing the fault yourself, _the greatest is that_
_of seeing it in your husband_. Do not seem to look or hear that way,
if he is a man of sense he will reclaim himself; the folly of it is of
itself sufficient to cure him; if he is not so, he will be provoked,
but not reformed." In other words he advises her to "eat her half
loaf and be happy", rather than disturb her share of happiness by
aiming higher than is compatible with the character and morality of
the average male. Halifax further observes that a benign indulgence
on the wife's part for the husband's wanderings will "make him more
yielding in other things", i. e. he admonishes his daughter to make a
compromise, enabling her to acquire certain advantages by conniving at
her husband's faithlessness! This is certainly pretty bad; but there
seems no room for any doubt that Halifax indeed struck the key-note of
eighteenth century opinion.
So far we have looked at the purely negative side of the picture, which
presents no features that can be called redeeming. Before passing to
the brighter side to examine the utterances of those who aimed at
the moral improvement of the female sex, or at an amelioration of
their social position, or both, we shall have to make some mention of
the views expressed by Swift in his "_Letter to a Young Lady on her
Marriage_". The general tone is certainly not encouraging. It holds the
male sex to be absolutely superior in matters physical, intellectual
and moral. While criticising with his habitual sarcasm the errors,
fopperies and vices of the female sex, Swift does not even trouble
to consider what has made them so depraved. The nearest suggestion
of possible blame to the male sex in regard to their treatment of
women is to be found in a passage in the "_Hints towards an Essay
on Conversation_". There are certain signs of a coming dawn in this
passage. After complaining of the degeneracy of conversation, "with the
pernicious consequences thereof upon our humours and dispositions,"
Swift suggests that it may be partly owing to "the custom arisen for
some time past of excluding women from any share in our society,
farther than in parties at play, or dancing, or in the pursuit of
an amour." In this respect he readily admits the superiority of the
more peaceable part of Charles the First's reign, "the highest period
of politeness in England," when the example set by France, and the
love-ideals prevailing among French society found English followers,
"and although we are apt to ridicule the sublime Platonic notions
they had, or personated, in love and friendship; I conceive their
refinements were grounded upon reason, and that a little grain of the
romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of
human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything
that is sordid, vicious and low." This astonishing avowal on the part
of one so inclined to cynicism throws a most unfavourable light upon
the relations between the sexes in the early years of the eighteenth
century.
However, if it could not be denied that manners and morals had decayed,
Swift never doubted that the female sex were chiefly responsible.
In his advice to the young bride their depravity is contrasted with
the sound wisdom and the more dignified conduct(!) of their lords
and masters. Swift satirises the worthlessness of the females who
spend their afternoon visiting their neighbours to indulge in talking
scandal, and whose evenings are devoted to the gambling-table. His
opinion of the sex in general is such as to make him emphatically warn
his young _protégée_ against the dangers of female conversation. "Your
only safe way of conversing with them is, by a firm resolution to
proceed in your practice and behaviour directly contrary to whatever
they say or do." The fondness of the sex for finery disgusts him to
such an extent, that he "cannot conceive them to be human creatures,
but a certain sort of species hardly a degree above a monkey."
Such was the verdict Swift passed upon the women of his time, whose
moral ideals, he was willing to grant, might be and ought to be the
same as those of men, always excepting "a certain reservedness, which
however, as they manage it, is nothing but affection and hypocrisy."
Man being superior to woman in every respect, also morally, it
follows that her chief aim should be to render herself more worthy
of him. Swift here introduces that pernicious theory of "relativity"
which in Rousseau's "_Emile_" was to arouse the indignation of Mary
Wollstonecraft. An effort is to be made to raise women out of that pool
of iniquity into which they have sunk, not so much for the sake of
their precious souls, as to render them more acceptable companions to
men. Whatever in Swift seems to favour a certain degree of emancipation
owes its origin to this consideration. He does not believe in what
he calls "the exalted passion of a French romance". By the time his
first passion is spent, the husband will want a companion to amuse and
cheer his leisure hours. Some provision should be made for the years
to come when, beauty having disappeared forever, it will be necessary
to fall back upon the accomplishments of the mind as a substitute, by
means of which the husband's esteem may be gained. Thus, by a process
differing materially from that of the feminists, Swift arrives at the
same conclusion; viz. that the first step towards improvement is the
institution of some kind of mental education for women. At the same
time he has little confidence in the mental capacities of the female
sex, so that his claims are in truth modest enough. Books of history
and travel represent the limit of what he deems them capable of
grasping; and he even recommends the making extracts from them, should
the fair reader's memory happen to be a little weak! For the rest the
task of instructing woman will necessarily devolve upon man; i. e.
upon the husband and upon those of his friends whom he judges best
calculated to enrich her mind by their advice and conversation, and to
set her right should her imagination tend to lead her judgment astray!
"Learned women," in the full sense of the term, were an abomination to
Swift, who believed the average female intellect to be so deficient
that "they could never arrive in point of learning to the perfection of
a schoolboy."
There can be no doubt that Swift's estimate of female capabilities
was the general one, which makes it all the more astonishing to find
that as early as 1673 a deliberate attempt was made to "raise women to
the dignity and usefulness which distinguished their ancestresses",
by giving them an education which included a rather considerable
amount of knowledge. A school for girls was founded in that year by
a certain Mrs. Makin, who explained her purpose in "_An Essay to
revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen in Religion, Manners,
Arts, and Tongues; with an Answer to the Objection against this Way
of Education_", dedicated to Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York.
The author protests against "the barbarous custom to breed women low",
which arises from the general belief that women are not endowed with
the same reason as man. Learning, and even virtue, in a woman are
"scorned and neglected as pedantic things, fit only for the vulgar",
and the creation of schools seems the only way to restore women to the
place they once held. Mrs. Makin wisely refrains from asking too much,
and therefore will not "as some have wittily done, plead for female
pre-eminence. To ask too much, is the way to be denied all". A plea,
therefore, for female education as a means of improving female morals.
Curiously enough, one of her pupils, Elizabeth Drake, was destined to
become Mrs. Robinson, and the mother of that Elizabeth Robinson who as
Mrs. Montagu became the recognised queen of the Bluestockings.
To strengthen her argument Mrs. Makin points to a number of women
who were proficient in knowledge among the Ancients, after which she
refers to some Englishwomen of great erudition, as: Lady Jane Grey,
Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Newcastle, "who overtops many grave
gownsmen", and the princess Elizabeth, daughter of Charles the First,
whose tutoress Mrs. Makin had been.
Her school for gentlewomen was situated at Tottenham High Cross,
then within four miles of London, on the road to Ware, "where by the
blessing of God, gentlewomen may be instructed in the principles of
religion and in all manner of sober and virtuous education: more
particularly in alle things ordinarily taught in other schools." Half
the time available for study, according to the sort of prospectus
with which the essay closes, was to be devoted to foreign languages,
particularly Latin and French, and those who wanted further instruction
could be served with "Greek, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish, in all which
this gentlewoman hath a competent knowledge." As a linguist, therefore,
Mrs. Makin here constitutes herself the rival of the famous translator
of Epictetus, Mrs. Carter. But she realised that the gift of languages
is not granted everybody. "Those who think one language enough for
a woman may forbear the languages and learn only (!) experimental
philosophy."
That the lady herself regarded the undertaking more or less as an
experiment appears from the fact that the terms were made dependent on
the success achieved. The minimum was twenty pounds per annum, but in
case of very marked improvement "something more would be expected", it
being left to the happy parents to judge how much more was due to the
preceptress.
A discourse on the "practicability of the scheme" was to be delivered
by a proxy "every Tuesday at Mrs. Mason's Coffee House in Cornhill,
near the Royal Exchange; and Thursdays at the 'Bolt and Tun' in Fleet
Street, between the hours of three and six in the afternoon."
That in Mrs. Robinson's case, at least, Mrs. Makin's efforts had not
been wholly in vain, is demonstrated by the fact that her children
called their mother "Mrs. Speaker", probably in connection with her
easy flow of language in the miniature contests of wit that used to be
held among them, which were no doubt an excellent preparation for the
later Mrs. Montagu's social task.
If we consider that both Port Royal and St. Cyr aimed far more at
instilling moral principles than imparting useful knowledge and that
neither in France nor in England had so sweeping an assertion ever been
put forward, it seems only giving Mrs. Makin her due to allow her a
prominent place among the pioneers of female education in Europe.
The history of feminism is as much that of the indirect influences
fostering the movement while slowly and almost imperceptibly leavening
the whole of society, as that of the direct and embittered struggle
for enfranchisement. The earlier half of the eighteenth century cannot
boast any direct champions of the cause beyond that Mary Astell of whom
it will be our business to speak presently, no martyrs out of whose
sacrifice arose the hopes of better things to come, but there are some
instances of men--and even of women--of letters who, while aiming at a
less ambitious or even a different object, indirectly contributed to
the growth of new opinions regarding the social status of women. Among
them must be reckoned the essayists, whose aim was (as the General
Advertisement of the _Tatler_ has it) "to teach the minuter decencies
and inferior duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to
correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal,
and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting
calamities, impress hourly vexation." Life is chiefly made up of such
seeming trifles, and the men who by pointing out the shortcomings of
humanity bring about an improvement in the general morals may claim to
be mentioned among the benefactors of mankind. Where the correction
of the slighter errors was avowedly the object in view, the essayists
were naturally drawn to consider the relations between the sexes,
to criticise women freely, and to point out the ready way towards
improvement. That the success they undeniably achieved was not--at
least in its direct consequences--in proportion to the talent lavished
on the essays, nor to the eagerness with which these literary efforts
were devoured by the reading public, was due mainly to two causes. In
the first place, considering probably that the times were not ripe for
that more direct form of attack upon the stronghold of conventional
manners and customs which in arousing opposition and resistance
results in war to the knife and ends in the complete overthrow of one
of the combatants, they chose to inculcate their moral lessons almost
imperceptibly, assuming a light and bantering tone of ridicule which
was not likely to give serious offence and might cause the reader to
laugh at her own expense and perhaps make her consider how much of
truth there lay in a criticism so jovially offered. No doubt this plan
was the wisest course under the circumstances then prevailing, but it
is not the way in which thorough reforms arise. Moreover, the moral
lessons were introduced so much at random, and with such utter lack of
system; and the improvements suggested were so vague, that in stating
that the periodical essay of the days of Addison and Steele helped
in some measure to prepare the way for the more emphatic assertions
of the later feminists, we have done the essayists full justice.
Their feminism is indeed extremely qualified, and stamps them as the
forerunners of the moralists among the Bluestockings, while leaving a
very wide gulf between them and Mary Wollstonecraft.
The thought of making anything like a definite claim never entered
their minds; the time for suggesting extensive social and political
improvements was yet far off, and Addison and Steele were content
to recommend in a general way the cultivation of the female mind
as the readiest way to overcome the prevailing worthlessness and
irresponsibility, thus continuing a line of thought which others
had held before them, and bringing it under the public notice. This
involves the supposition that the female mind is improveable to an
eminent degree, and here Addison and Steele fully agree. In No. 172 of
the _Guardian_ the latter, in giving an extract from a poem "in praise
of the invention of writing, written by a lady", delivers himself of
the sentiment that "the fair sex are as capable as men of the liberal
sciences; and indeed there is no very good argument against the
frequent instruction of females of condition this way, _but that they
are too powerful without that advantage_."
Addison in another number (155) of the same periodical says that "he
has often wondered that learning is not thought a proper ingredient in
the education of a woman of quality or fortune. Since they have the
same improveable minds as the male part of the species, why should they
not be cultivated by the same method? Why should reason be left to
itself in one of the sexes, and be disciplined with so much care in the
other?" An assertion, therefore, of the faculty of Reason in woman, and
a denial of that much-professed sexual character upon which eighteenth
century society was almost exclusively founded, and which Steele held
to be the main cause of contemporary female inferiority. He complained
(_Tatler_ No. 61) that the fact that the eighteenth century woman
valued herself only on her beauty, caused her to be regarded by men on
no other consideration as "a mere woman" from a purely sexual point of
view; it being his opinion that the rule for pleasing long (which, with
a want of logic in matters of sex characteristic of his time, he held
to be woman's chief consideration) was "to obtain such qualifications
as would make them so, were they not women," and therefore without any
reference to sex.
The superiority of the accomplishments of the mind over mere physical
beauty is a favourite theme with Steele, and may be found illustrated
in the usual way in No. 33 of the _Spectator_ in the character of the
two sisters Laetitia and Daphne. The suitor whom the former's charms
have captivated is not long in discovering that her pleasing appearance
but ill conceals the insipidity of her character, and promptly
transfers his affections to the less handsome but more cultured and
therefore far more agreeable Daphne. And so Steele wants it to be
realised that we commit a gross blunder when "in our daughters we take
care of their persons and neglect their minds", whereas "in our sons we
are so intent upon adorning their minds that we wholly neglect their
bodies" (_Spectator_ No. 66). Strangely enough in a moralist, the
ethical side of the question is here left out of discussion.
The conclusions drawn by both Steele and Addison from this neglect
of the education of the mind are characteristic of the difference
between the two. Steele observes that the unavoidable loss of her
beauty through the ravages of time causes a woman in the prime of her
years to be out of fashion and neglected, and he pleads earnestly for
an education to be given to women, that they may have better chances
of happiness in the later years of matrimony; whilst Addison with his
habitual irony weakens the impression produced by his assertion of the
perfectibility of the female mind, by ridiculing the much-discussed
"femmes savantes" in his picture of Lady Lizard and her daughters
reading Fontenelle's "_Pluralité des mondes_" while "busy preserving
several fruits of the season, dividing their speculation between
jellies and stars, and making a sudden transition from the sun to an
apricot, or from the Copernican system to the figure of a cheese-cake."
His treatment of the question is throughout tinged with sarcasm. "If
the female tongue will be in motion", he says, after complaining of
their _copia verborum_, "why should it not be set to go right?" Thus
science might be made into an antidote to scandal and intrigue.
The most directly feminist among the authors of the late seventeenth
and the early eighteenth century was Mary Astell, the author of "_A
Serious Proposal to the Ladies_", written in 1696. Her personality
and ideas remind us strongly of Mlle de Gournay, who lived nearly a
century earlier. The conviction that all contact with the world and
its wickedness would infallibly end in moral ruin had made Mary Astell
the warm advocate of education in a nunnery, far from the madding
crowd, where women might be brought up to lives of Christian virtue.
The very fact, however, that she was not a worldly woman, made her
overlook the circumstance that her scheme, however promising in theory,
could never hope to stand the test of practice. It was to be expected
that the first practical hint for an educational establishment for
women--a hint which, however, was not more regarded than Mary Astell's
had been--would come from one whose close contact with the outside
world enabled him to do something more than brood over schemes that
were incapable of realisation. Mary Astell in her religious zeal had
entirely forgotten to take into account the innate proclivities of the
female character. Daniel Defoe knew how to reconcile the demands of
life and of womanhood with those of a moral educational establishment,
and he suggested a scheme which was certainly more capable of being
put into practice than Mary Astell's. But even he was firmly convinced
that his proposal would meet with almost universal disapprobation and
therefore recommended it to the consideration of a later generation.
Defoe was a man of great inventiveness and sound common sense, and many
undeniable improvements were suggested in his "_Essay upon Projects_"
(1702). He had certainly heard of, and very probably read (although
he misquotes the title) Mrs. Astell's "_Serious Proposal_", and it
redounds to his credit that he is one of the very few contemporaries
of that eccentric lady to do justice to her motives in seriously
considering her ideal of a nunnery, instead of making it the object
of obscene insinuations like those of which Dr. Swift was guilty in
the pages of the _Tatler_. His estimate of the possibilities of women
was very considerably in advance of his time, and places him among the
most advanced of woman's male advocates. Unlike the essayists, his
tone is serious throughout, and the proposal well worth considering,
although even Defoe has so far become tainted with the prevailing
opinion regarding women as to assume certain sexual propensities which
he fears will be in the way of their moral improvement. "I doubt a
method proposed by an ingenious lady in a little book called "_Advice
to the Ladies_" would be found practicable," he says. "For, saving my
respect for the sex, _the levity which is perhaps a little peculiar
to them_, at least in their youth, will not bear the restraint, and
I am satisfied nothing but the height of bigotry can keep a nunnery."
Here we have the voice of worldly experience and psychological insight
protesting against Utopianism. For in women who for ages have lacked
the moulding influence of education Nature cannot fail to assert
herself, and will ruin the scheme.
On the other hand, his confidence in the improvability of the sex is
such as to make him claim for them the right to an education which
will bring out their dormant qualities. "I have often thought of it
as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as
a civilised and a Christian country, that we deny the advantage of
learning to our women. We reproach the sex every day with folly and
impertinence, which I am confident, had they the advantage of education
equal to us, _they would be guilty of less than ourselves_." That the
pioneer should occasionally somewhat overstep the bounds of moderation
is surely pardonable. Defoe in his zeal holds the capacities of women
to be greater and their senses quicker than those of men.
Nor does he fail to recognise the advantage that will accrue to the
female soul from an education which will "polish the rough diamond",
and without which its lustre might never appear. The Academy for
Women which he proposes, therefore, shall be "different from all sort
of religious confinements," and above all, there shall be no vows
of celibacy. The ascetic view of finding fault with every innocent
enjoyment seems to him as objectionable as the perpetual pursuit of
pleasure upon which it was a reaction.
The Academy was to be a sort of public school, supplying women with the
advantages of learning "suitable to their genius", without requiring
any monastic vows which were sure to be broken. Defoe is inclined to
try his women "by the principles of honour and strict virtue", being
convinced that the measure of keeping the men effectually away from the
college will put an end to all intriguing. According to him, temptation
comes with the suggestion of opportunity and all modesty takes its root
in custom, "for this alone, when inclinations reign, tho' virtue's
fled, will act of vice restrain".
"If their desires are strong, and nature free,
Keep from her man and opportunity,
Else 'twill be vain to curb her by restraint;
But keep the question off, you keep the saint."
Everything should be done to render intriguing dangerous, if not
impossible. The building should be of three plain fronts, "that the
eye might at a glance see from one coin to the other, the gardens
walled in the same triangular figure, with a large moat and but one
entrance." But the restraint would be only relative, for only those
were to be admitted into the seclusion of the college who were willing
to live there, and even they were not to be confined a moment longer
than the same voluntary choice inclined them.
Defoe realised that upon an absolute separation from the opposite sex
depended the success of his undertaking. We seem to be listening to
Lilia in Tennyson's _Princess_ saying: "But I would make it death for
any male thing but to peep at us", when Defoe pleads the advisability
of an act of parliament making it "felony for any man to enter by
force or fraud into the house, or to solicit any woman though it were
to marry, while she was in the house." Any woman willing to receive
the advances of a suitor, might leave the establishment, whilst those
anxious to "discharge themselves of impertinent addresses" would be
sure at any time to find a refuge in it.
The plan of instruction is made relative to the natural inclinations
of the sex. An important place is to be given to music and dancing,
"because they are their darlings", and to foreign languages,
particularly French and Italian, "and I would venture the injury
of giving a woman more tongues than one." Books are recommended,
especially on historical subjects, to make them understand the world,
nor are "the graces of speech", and "the necessary air of conversation"
forgotten, in which the usual education was so defective.
In the solution he proposes to the problem of female erudition,
Defoe was equally effective. He recognises that it will not do to
fit all women into a universal harness. Allowance must be made for
individuality. "To such whose genius would lead them to it" he would
deny no sort of learning. He is even roused to an ecstatic pitch
of enthusiasm by the contemplation of the ideal female which his
imagination conjures up before his mind's eye. "Without partiality;
a woman of sense and manners is the finest and most delicate part of
God's creation, the glory of her Maker, and the great instance of his
singular regard to man, his darling creature, to whom he gave the best
gift either God could bestow or man receive", to which he adds that
education may make of any woman "a creature without comparison, whose
society is the emblem of sublime enjoyments." God has given to all
mankind souls equally capable, and the entire difference between the
sexes proceeds "either from accidental differences in the make of their
bodies, or from the foolish difference of education." And Defoe winds
up with the bold assertion that all the world are mistaken in their
practice about women, "for I cannot think that God Almighty ever made
them such delicate and glorious creatures, and furnished them with such
charms, so agreeable and so delightful to mankind, with souls capable
of the same accomplishments with men, and only to be stewards of our
houses, cooks and slaves."
In direct opposition to the opinion of the Dean of St. Patrick's,
holding women to be the main cause of their own depravity and endowing
them with a very limited share of intelligence rendering them forever
inferior to men, stand out the views of at least one individual member
of the sex. While fully sharing Swift's disapproval of the actual
condition of women, she felt more inclined to follow Defoe in blaming
the other half of mankind for refusing them every opportunity to show
their possibilities. The tyranny of the male sex aroused the burning
indignation of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose feelings found vent
both in her voluminous correspondence and in her, mostly occasional,
poetry. She was most vehement in her denunciation of the treatment of
married women by their husbands, which she made an argument against
matrimony, and in favour of the virginal state, which at least ensured
to women a certain amount of freedom and leisure. "Wife and servant
are the same, but only differ in the name", and accordingly women are
exhorted to "shun that wretched state, and all the fawning flatt'rers
hate."[24] She did not, like Swift, believe in the moral superiority
of man, and called marriage "a lottery, where there is (at the lowest
computation) ten thousand blanks to a prize." Being all her life a
furious reader, she had in her earliest years imbibed the romantic
notions of d'Urfé's _Astrée_ and of de Scudéry's long-winded romances
of _Cyrus_ and _Clélie_, causing her to deeply regret the utter loss
of that platonic ideal of gallantry with its tendency to elevate the
mind and to instil honourable sentiments which had so charmed her hours
of meditation. In spite of the fact that her passion for literature
met with little or no encouragement, and that her own education had
been, according to her own statement[25] "one of the worst in the
world"--being an exact parallel to that of which the unfortunate
Clarissa Harlowe became the much-lamented victim--her erudition was
such, that Pope--previous to their quarrel, when he said some very
nasty things about her--playfully wondered what punishment might be in
store for one who, not content, like Eve, with a single apple, "had
robbed the whole tree".
Her own marriage to Mr. Edward Wortley Montagu was hardly a success.
His diplomatic career, however, gave his wife the much wished-for
opportunity to cultivate her understanding by means of foreign travel.
As a result of her experiences at Constantinople she was enabled on the
one hand to furnish the medical science with the means of successfully
combating that most destructive disease: the smallpox, and on the
other to enrich literature with a correspondence which bespeaks a
profound knowledge of the world, combined with great sagacity and a
wonderful discriminating power, and cannot fail to charm even the
modern reader with the freshness and variety of its descriptions. Both
style and descriptive manner show a pronounced resemblance to Mary
Wollstonecraft's "_Letters from Sweden_", written nearly eighty years
later. A preface to Lady Mary's Letters, which were not published until
her death, was written in 1724 by Mrs. Astell, who certainly did not
deserve the description given of her by the first editor of the Letters
as "the fair and elegant prefacer", being "a pious, exemplary woman,
and a profound scholar, but as far from fair and elegant as any old
schoolmaster of her time."[26] Her friendship for Lady Mary found its
origin in the circumstance that she saw in the latter's talents the
conclusive evidence of that mental equality of the sexes which she made
it her business to demonstrate. "I confess I am malicious enough to
desire that the world should see to how much better purpose the Ladies
travel than their Lords; and that, whilst it is surfeited with male
travels all in the same tone, and stuffed with the same trifles, a lady
has the skill to strike out a new path and to embellish a worn-out
subject with variety of fresh and elegant entertainment." That this
praise is--at least partly--due to considerations of feminism, appears
from the following verses:
"Let the male authors with an envious eye
Praise coldly, that they may the more decry;
Women (at least I speak the sense of some)
This little spirit of rivalship o'ercome.
I read with transport, and with joy I greet
A genius so sublime, and so complete,
And gladly lay my laurels at her feet."
Lady Mary on her part wrote an "_Ode to Friendship_", addressed to
Mrs. Mary Astell. She also sympathised with the latter's scheme for
the establishment of a convent. She thought that a safe retreat might
be preferable to a show of public life. Her friend Lady Stafford
once said of her that her true vocation was a monastery, and we have
Lady Mary's own evidence where, approving of a project of an English
monastery in "_Sir Charles Grandison_", she confesses that it was one
of the favourite schemes of her early youth to get herself elected
lady-abbess. This intellectual propensity--for what appealed to
her most in the scheme was the indefinite leisure to be devoted to
studies--pervades all her writings, and throws further light upon her
disinclination to the matrimonial state and her recluse habits.
Lady Mary's social career came to a sudden close when in 1739 her
declining health made it advisable for her to leave England for the
sunny skies of northern Italy, where she remained till the year
before her death. To this period belong her chief contributions
to the Woman Question, contained in her correspondence with her
daughter the Countess of Bute, and giving her views of the position
of women, elicited by certain remarks on the education of her little
granddaughter. The circumstances under which this correspondence was
carried on bear a close resemblance to Mme de Sévigné's when writing
to her daughter Mme de Grignan her excellent advice regarding the
education of little Pauline de Simiane. From what has already been
said it may be readily concluded that the principal of Lady Mary's
grievances against the existing system was not that women were not
allowed their share of political and social power,--for she felt
no difficulty in entrusting the male sex with those duties which
would have kept her from her favourite pursuit--but rather that they
should be purposely and systematically debarred from studies and kept
in ignorance. But she was wise in avoiding all generalisation and
recommending the consideration of each individual case by itself and
for its own sake, since what might suit one woman might prove a source
of misery to another.
When her own daughter had been young, the fact that she was likely to
attract the highest offers had made it necessary that she should learn
to live in the world, for which very few intellectual qualifications
were then needed. But her granddaughter's chances of a brilliant
match were considerably less, and so she ought to be taught how to be
perfectly easy out of the world, in that retirement which Lady Mary
herself preferred to the social state. Thus, a new element is added
to the arguments in favour of liberal instruction, which is to be a
pleasure rather than a task, with no more important background than
the providing of a substitute for social intercourse to those whose
circumstances prevent them from occupying a place in social circles.
And it is clearly the mother's task to talk over with her daughter what
the latter may have read, that she may not "mistake pert folly for wit
and humour, or rhyme for poetry, which are the common errors of young
people, and have a train of ill consequences."
The moral education which she recommends for her granddaughter is
rather slight, and based chiefly on the negative principle--which we
have also found in Fénelon and other French moralists--of keeping the
mind occupied as a means of preventing idleness, which is the mother of
mischief. Learning,--which modesty would have them carefully conceal,
for ignorance is bold, and true knowledge reserved--will tend to make
women less deceitful instead of more so, and as the same lessons will
form the same characters, there is no reason to "place women in an
inferior rank to men."
Lady Mary thus declared her belief in the equality of the sexes, but
she has not enough of the social leaven in her to make any definite
claim for her sex. She is rather an isolated specimen of womanhood,
serving as a proof of the capacities of some exceptional women, than
a fighter for female rights. Her intellectual and literary powers
were of a critical and satirical rather than a creative nature. That
she was among the very first women to possess the critical faculty in
an eminent degree, appears from the clever criticism of contemporary
fiction with which her correspondence abounds, and which makes her
the forerunner of her husband's relative of Bluestocking fame. She
was sufficiently independent in her judgment to disagree with the
general opinion of Richardson's novels, without being able to remain
uninfluenced by his pathos. "I heartily despise him, and eagerly read
him, nay, sob over his works in a most scandalous manner." This merely
because of the parallel some of the heroine's circumstances afforded
to those of her own youth, for neither Miss Howe nor even Clarissa
herself found favour in her eyes. She was one of the very few readers
of Richardson who saw the faultiness of the moral of both _Pamela_ and
_Clarissa Harlowe_, considering them "to be two books that will do more
general mischief than the works of Lord Rochester." Her sound common
sense made her heartily despise any excess of that sensibility which
Richardson's works fostered. Her verdict of _Sir Charles Grandison_
was even more crushing. "His conduct (towards Clementina) puts me in
mind of some ladies I have known who could never find out a man to
be in love with them, let him do or say what he would, till he made a
direct attempt, and then they were so surprised, I warrant you! nor
do I approve Sir Charles's offered compromise (as he calls it). There
must be a great indifference to religion on both sides, to make so
strict a union as marriage tolerable between people of such distinct
persuasions. He seems to think women have no souls, by agreeing so
easily that his daughters should be educated in bigotry and idolatry."
In her love of learning, and more still in her keen literary judgment
Lady Mary foreshadowed the coming of the Bluestockings, whom her total
lack of sociability would have forever prevented her from joining.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] "_The World's Olio_" (1655) contains an essay on "_The Inferiority
of Woman, morally and physically_".
[16] See Forsyth, _Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century_, pp.
18-24.
[17] Letter 126.
[18] Letter 298.
[19] Letter 76.
[20] Letter 481.
[21] Letter 78.
[22] Letter 124.
[23] The above statement may at first sight seem rather too sweeping.
But it is supported by the authority of Mary Astell (cf. page 90),
who in her "_Serious Proposal to the Ladies_" remarks that it was
generally considered quite unnecessary to waste money on the education
of daughters. Most parents, she says, "_took as much pains to beat
girls away from knowledge as to beat boys towards it_". She was quite
aware that her scheme for the establishment of a nunnery in which the
daughters of the aristocracy were to be saved from neglect must be
shocking to the parents of her generation, who feared that such an
education might in all probability corrupt their morals(!) and would
certainly _prevent them from marrying_. In this lies the gist of all
deliberate discouragement of female learning. The only object in a
girl's life being to make a suitable match,--meaning a wealthy one,--it
followed that everything was subordinated to this consideration. And
it unfortunately happened that the men of the century preferred their
partners in wedlock silly and ignorant, and consequently easy-going and
submissive.
At one time Mary Astell's scheme came very near to realisation. The
devout, intellectual and wealthy Lady Elizabeth Hastings became
interested in it and declared herself willing to supply the necessary
funds. But it so happened that Bishop Burnet heard of the plan and of
the promised donation. A scheme for a rational education for girls
struck this conservative churchman as so absurd that in his Anglican
hatred of Catholicism he rather irrelevantly referred to it as "a
popish project", using all his influence to divert Lady Elizabeth's
charity, in which effort he was completely successful.
[24] _A Caveat to the Fair Sex._
[25] _Letter_ to the Countess of Bute, March 6, 1753.
[26] "_Introductory Anecdotes_" to Lord Wharncliffe's Edition of the
Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (Paris, 1837).