Tag: Mary Wollstonecraft

Staging a Vindication – Mary Wollstonecraft and the Theatre

Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman can sometimes strike us as standing apart from the writing of her contemporaries – in its boldness, its lasting impact on Feminist thought, and the extraordinary life of its author. But while Wollstonecraft is unique, she’s not alone. Her ideas resonated with many other women writers, and particularly with female playwrights of her time. Here are a few instances where lines from play texts parallel or reflect her thoughts on morality, freedom, and independence.

Hannah Cowley, A School for Greybeards (1786)

School for Greybeards is loosely based on Aphra Behn’s The Lucky Chance (1686), but Cowley makes a crucial change to Behn’s plot: instead of a rape by deception, she substitutes a staged elopement scene entirely orchestrated by the witty and cynical Seraphina. Having explained her plot, Seraphina also explains why she had no reason to be worried for her safety: ‘A woman, who respects herself Octavio, is safe in every situation; –  she ne’er incurs risk, who has sense of Duty for her Guard!’ (V, 5) 

This might read as a bit slutshamey to a modern reader; but I don’t believe it’s entirely intended that way. Seraphina is consistently sceptical of male characters’ intentions, and her own experience confirms for her that a woman cannot rely on male protection to safeguard her. Her use of ‘respect’ here appears not to refer to sexual immorality, but more to a sense of inner strength and values which women should try to achieve, because it will be more useful to them than trying to rely on the protection of others. Wollstonecraft uses the term in the same sense when she observes that her society thinks women ‘were made to be loved, and must not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as masculine.’[1] Cowley and Wollstonecraft both observe that ‘love’ doesn’t always come with ‘respect’ – but that women ought to be able to aim for both.

Elizabeth Inchbald, The Mogul Tale (1784)

Inchbald’s The Mogul Tale is set in an Indian harem, and right at the beginning one of the harem’s inhabitants observes, ‘our sex are seldom kind tо the woman that is so prosperous; their pity is confined to those that are forsaken — to be forsaken and ugly, are the greatest distresses a woman can have’ (I, 1). You can always rely on Inchbald for some pointed satire, and here she points out the two things women were (and are) often considered to be competitive about: popularity and beauty. Because women in the harem are literally cut off from any other means of achieving influence, they very much rely on their physical appearance to gain them some form of power.

Inchbald is exploring a dynamic that Wollstonecraft later analyses further in her Vindication, one that reduces women’s influence to their appearance at the expense of their intellectual and moral character. Wollstonecraft also has a tendency to make references to Eastern cultural practices when writing about this dynamic: she writes of women ‘cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters’; laments that, ‘[t]o preserve personal beauty, woman’s glory! the limbs and faculties are cramped with worse than Chinese bands’; and argues that in conduct books written by men, women, ‘in the true style of Mahometanism, […] are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and not as a part of the human species’.[2] There’s certainly some amount of stereotyping involved in Wollstonecraft and Inchbald’s easy association of ‘Eastern’ with ‘tyranny’; but they’re also pointing to the hypocrisy of their own culture, which liked to consider itself in some way superior, but didn’t actually treat women any better.

Sophia Lee, The Chapter of Accidents (1780)

The main point of The Chapter of Accidents is that a woman’s public reputation does not define her value. The heroine Cecilia is a virtuous woman, but her friend Sophia Mortimer knows that her status as a mistress will define her to most people as damaged goods: ‘Supposing her all you say, the world judges by actions, not thoughts, and will bury her merit in her situation’ (V, 2). Sophia Lee herself – notice how she and her fictional character share a first name! – wrote how her status as a woman (and a single, working one) overshadowed her literary talents when she sent this play to manager Thomas Harris: ‘I learnt that merit merely is a very insufficient recommendation’ (Preface, ii).

Wollstonecraft is similarly unimpressed with the world’s tendency to consider women’s moral fitness rather than their skills: ‘with respect to reputation, the attention is confined to a single virtue – chastity. If the honour of a woman, as it is absurdly called, be safe, she may neglect every social duty’.[3] Making a good reputation the main aim of a woman’s life is not only unhealthy, but it prevents her from doing more useful things – in The Chapter of Accidents, Cecilia has to hide for most of the play until her reputation is restored. Wollstonecraft also points out how being concerned about your public image above all else results in superficial behavior not actually based on real character traits (I wonder what she would have said about Instagram?): ‘I doubt whether chastity will produce modesty, though it may propriety of conduct, when it is merely a respect for the opinion of the world’.[4] In the Chapter of Accidents, Cecilia is ‘a truly noble-minded girl, and far above her present situation’ (V, 2), because she decides to have respect for herself, rather than the ‘opinion of the world’.

The world’s opinion on Wollstonecraft herself has certainly varied a lot – Walpole called her a ‘hyena in petticoats’, while Woolf ascribed her a ‘form of immortality […] she is alive and active, she argues and experiments, we hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living.’ In the works of female playwrights, the ideas made famous by Wollstonecraft achieve another sort of immortality.

[1] Wollstonecraft, Vindication, p. 100.

[2] Vindication, pp. 107, 109, 71.

[3] Vindication, p. 216.

[4] Vindication, p. 202.

On this day: 222 years ago, Mary Wollstonecraft gave birth to her daughter Mary

On 30 August 1797, Mary Wollstonecraft gave birth to her daughter, the future Mary Shelley.

To mark this date, here are some accounts of her life and death.
In his Memoirs of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798), her husband William Godwin writes:
‘She was taken in labour on Wednesday, the thirtieth of August. […] She was so far from being under any apprehension as to the difficulties of child-birth, as frequently to ridicule the fashion of ladies in England, who keep their chamber for one full month after delivery. For herself, she proposed coming down to dinner on the day immediately following. She had already had some experience on the subject in the case of Fanny; and I cheerfully submitted in every point to her judgment and her wisdom. She hired no nurse. Influenced by ideas of decorum, which certainly ought to have no place, at least in cases of danger, she determined to have a woman to attend her in the capacity of midwife. […] At five o’clock in the morning of the day of delivery, she felt what she conceived to be some notices of the approaching labour. Mrs. Blenkinsop, matron and midwife to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, who had seen Mary several times previous to her delivery, was soon after sent for, and arrived about nine. During the whole day Mary was perfectly cheerful. Her pains came on slowly; and in the morning, she wrote several notes, three addressed to me, who had gone, as usual, to my apartments, for the purpose of study. About two o’clock in the afternoon, she went up to her chamber, — never more to descend.’ (pp. 178-180)

Her (occasional) acquaintance Elizabeth Inchbald mentions Wollstonecraft’s labour and death in a letter:
‘She was attended by a woman, whether from partiality or economy I can’t tell — but from no affected prudery I am sure. She had a very bad time, and they at last sent for an intimate acquaintance of his, Mr. Carlisle, a man of talents. He delivered her; she thanked him, and told him he had saved her life: he left her for two hours — returned, and pronounced she must die. Still she languished three of four days. This is the account I have heard, but not from him [Godwin]; he has written to me several times since; but they are more like distracted lines than any thing rational.’ (Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald, London: Bentley, 1833, pp. 14/15)

Mary Shelley, who only knew her mother from her writings, portraits, and her gravestone, later wrote about her:
‘The writings of this celebrated woman are monuments of her moral and intellectual superiority. Her lofty spirit, her eager assertion of the claims of her sex, animate the “Vindication of the Rights of Woman;” while the sweetness and taste displayed in her “Letters from Norway” depict the softer qualities of her admirable character. Even now, those who have survived her so many years, never speak of her but with uncontrollable enthusiasm. Her unwearied exertions for the benefit of others, her rectitude, her independence, joined to a warm affectionate heart, and the most refined softness of manners, made her the idol of all who knew her. Mr Godwin was not allowed long to enjoy the happiness he reaped from this union. Mary Wollstonecraft died the 10th September 1797, having given birth to a daughter, the present Mrs. Shelley.’ (‘Memoirs of William Godwin’, in Caleb Williams, (London: Bentley, 1831), p. ix)

And finally, some of Mary Wollstonecraft’s own thoughts on motherhood:
‘To be a good mother — a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. […] Females, it is true, in all countries, are too much under the dominion of their parents; and few parents think of addressing their children in the following manner, though it is in this reasonable way that Heaven seems to command the whole human race. It is your interest to obey me till you can judge for yourself; and the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection in me to serve as a guard to you whilst your reason is unfolding; but when your mind arrives at maturity, you must only obey me, or rather respect my opinions, so far as they coincide with the light that is breaking in on your own mind.’ (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, pp. 233/237)