Eighteenth-century Women

An Anthology

Bridget Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136247965
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

When it was first published in 1984, this book filled an acknowledged gap in the social history of the period and made available hitherto inaccessible sources. The work draws on newspapers and journals, memoirs, diaries, courtesy books, county surveys and records, but also on the literature of the period, its novels, poetry and plays. It examines the role assigned to women in eighteenth-century society and the education thought fitting to perform it. It looks at attitudes to courtship and marriage, chastity and sexual passion. It explores the role of women as wives and mothers, as spinsters and widows, and focuses on the living and working experience of women whether in the home, agriculture, industry or domestic service. It contrasts the expectations of the rich and the poor, the leisured lady and the underpaid female agricultural labourer, the unmarried mother and the prostitute.

Part	Ideas of Female Perfection
1

Such Sweetness and Goodness together combin’d; So beauteous her Face, and so bright in her Mind; So loving, yet chaste; and so humble, yet fair; So comely her Shape, and so decent her Air; So skilful, that Nature’s improv’d by her Art; So prudent her Head, and so bounteous her Heart; So wise without Pride, and so modestly neat; ’Tis strange, this agreeable Creature’s a Cheat! For, tho’ she to Man, for a Mortal, was giv’n, These virtues betray her Extraction from Heav’n.

(Stephen Duck, ‘On Mrs L–––s’,

Poems on Several Occasions, 1736)

Introduction

In the eighteenth century the views of middle-class society on the role allotted to women were clearly expounded by a host of writers. In mothers’ advice to their daughters (whether real or fictitious), in letters addressed to young ladies, in treatises on the content and objects of female education, and in guides to feminine conduct and deportment, the duties and responsibilities of young women to their parents, and to their future or present husbands, were laid down. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for a woman of the middle class who could read to remain ignorant of the model to which she was expected to aspire.

Such writings were not new, but they proliferate after 1740 in a concerted attempt to redefine woman’s role and sexual ethics.

The authors represented here are mainly, but not solely, of the male sex. Not all of them agree on details. Some of the authors put greater weight on women improving their minds by reading. But what all, except a very small group, have in common is the insistence on the absolute distinction in both mental and physical characteristics between men and women. What follows from that distinction is the totally separate roles allotted to each sex.

Most revealing in all the models of feminine perfection is what is left out. For example, many authors, including Dr John Gregory (4), condemn wit in a woman. Woman’s role was to listen rather than to speak.

The model of feminine perfection created by these writers may have borne little relation to the way women behaved in real life. The biting irony with which Mary Astell writes of wifely submission (7) suggests that at least some women were questioning the role assigned to them. But, by those women anxious to establish their new social status, this role was eagerly accepted as a means to differentiate themselves from women of an inferior social status.

These writings for women’s guidance were not merely laying down rules for feminine etiquette. They were seeking to establish an orthodox sexual morality and strict standards of conduct. The vocabulary of this morality – modesty, restraint, passivity, compliance, submission, delicacy and, most important of all, chastity, and the way that vocabulary is used reveals how female virtue was interpreted almost exclusively in sexual terms. ‘Masculine’ characteristics in a woman were to be avoided because men found them ‘forbidding’ (14). Women must wear uncomfortable stays, cover their bosoms, never lounge or loll, avoid all suggestion that they were aware of their own bodies, not so much for their own virtue’s sake, as not to put temptation in the way of men (2). Elizabeth Montagu, when a young girl, wrote to her mother asking that she be sent her bathing dress as until it arrived she ‘must bath in her chemise and jupon’. It was indelicate for women to have to view their own naked bodies, just as all references to bodily functions – and even to pregnancy – were taboo.

There were few writers who attacked such images of feminine perfection. At the very end of the century Hannah More, while arguing that women must develop their minds and their critical faculties, nevertheless saw their role as essentially one of submissive passivity (6).

The eighteenth century opens and closes with a wave of evangelical enthusiasm when fears of social disorder in a period of great moral laxity and dissoluteness led to an urgent need for the middle and upper classes to set an example to those below them in the social hierarchy, and to work for the inculcation of the principles of Christian morality in the labouring class. What was needed were industrious, sober and humble servants and labourers content to endure the sufferings of this life given the certainty of their future rewards in heaven. Women had an important role to play in this process.

So it was that piety was seen as a particularly feminine attribute. It was not just that the idea of woman as the nearest thing to an angel upon earth demanded something of a religious aura (11), but that, as an extension of the double standard, women needed the consolations of religion more than men. John Bennett saw it as the ‘only true and unfailing resource’ for women (12) whose lives were otherwise bleak deserts of suffering and endurance.

(a) Restraint and Modesty

1

LUCINDA(an elderly lady): . . . now-a-days, the very virgins, that should be the temples of modesty, go with their bodies half naked, and not only so, but the obscene part of their body.

ANTONIA(her niece): I never knew that one’s neck was an obscene part.

LUCINDA:What you call your neck is here, your neck ends at the collarbone, this is your chest, your bosom, this is the pit of your stomach, these are your breasts; you make a strange long neck of it; and are like the sign-painters, who only call it a head, tho’ they paint a man or a woman as far as the waist; you may as well call it your chin as your neck.

ANTONIA:Well, let it be call’d bosom, or what part you please, why is it obscene?

LUCINDA:Why, I wonder you should ask that question; can any thing be more obscene than the very marks of your body, by which ye are known to be a woman: all virtuous people think it obscene in either man or woman to show any thing naked that may tempt the other to wickedness; but it is much more so, to prostitute those parts, by which the sexes are distinguished. (Bernard de Mandeville, The Virgin Unmask’d, (1714), 1724, pp. 3–4)

2

Never appear in company, without your stays. Make it your general rule, to lace in the morning, before you leave your chamber. The neglect of this, is liable to the censure of indolence, supineness of thought, sluttishness – and very often worse.

The negligence of loose attire

May oft’ invite to loose desire.

Leaning, and lolling, are often interpreted to various disadvantages. I presume, no lady would be seen to put her hand under her neck-handkerchief in company. (Rev Mr Wettenhall Wilkes, A Letter of Genteel and Moral Advice to a Young Lady, (1740), 1766, pp. 211–12, 214)

3

I call heaven to witness, your father was the first man whom I ever made any private assignation with, or even met in a room alone – nor did I take that liberty with him, ’til the most solemn mutual engagement, the matrimonial ceremony, had bound us to each other. (Lady Sarah Pennington, An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice to her Absent Daughters (1761), 1770, pp. 9–10)

4

One of the chief beauties in a female character is that modest reserve, that retiring delicacy, which avoids the public eye, and is disconcerted even at the gaze of admiration . . .

When a girl ceases to blush, she has lost the most powerful charm of beauty. That extreme sensibility which it indicates, may be a weakness and incumbrance in our sex, as I have too often felt; but in yours it is peculiarly engaging . . .

This modesty, which I think so essential in your sex, will naturally dispose you to be rather silent in company, especially in a large one. People of sense and discernment will never mistake such silence for dullness. One may take a share in conversation without uttering a syllable. The expression in the countenance shows it, and this never escapes an observing eye. (John Gregory, A Father’s Legacy to his Daughters, 1774, pp. 16–17)

5

JOHNSON: There are ten genteel women for a genteel man, because they are more restrained. A man without some degree of restraint is insufferable; but we are less restrained than women. Were a woman sitting in company to put out her legs before her as most men do, we should be tempted to kick them in. (Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1776), ed. G. B. Hill and L. F. Powell, 1934–50, pp. 53–4)

6

An early habitual restraint is peculiarly important to the future character and happiness of woman. A judicious, unrelaxing, but steady and gentle curb on their tempers and passions can alone ensure their peace and establish their principles. It is a habit which cannot be adopted too soon, nor persisted in too pertinaciously. They should when very young be enured to contradiction. Instead of hearing their bonmots treasured up and repeated till the guests are tired, and till the children begin to think it dull, when they themselves are not the little heroine of the theme, they should be accustomed to receive but little praise for their vivacity or their wit, though they should receive just commendation for their patience, their industry, their humility, and other qualities which have more worth than splendour. They should be led to distrust their own judgement; they should learn not to murmur at expostulation; they should be accustomed to expect and endure opposition. It is a lesson with which the world will not fail to furnish them; and they will not practise it the worse for having learnt it the sooner. It is of the last importance to their happiness even in this life that they should early acquire a submissive temper and a forbearing spirit. They must even endure to be thought wrong sometimes, when they cannot but feel they are right. (Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799), 1800, pp. 105–6)

(b) Submission and Compliance

7

She . . . who marries ought to lay it down for an indisputable maxim, that her husband must govern absolutely and entirely, and that she has nothing else to do but to please and obey. She must not attempt to divide his authority, or so much as dispute it, to struggle with her yoke will only make it gall more, but must believe him wise and good and in all respects the best, at least he must be so to her. She who can’t do this is in no way fit to be a wife . . . is not qualify’d to receive that great reward which attends the eminent exercise of humility and self-denial, patience and resignation, the duties that a wife is call’d to. (Mary Astell, Some Reflections upon Marriage (1700), 1706, p. 56)

8

I shall, however, without much offence, I hope to the fair sex, advise them not to be so ambitious of power, as but too many of them are, who are fond of having a superiority over their husbands, and by an indecent inversion of original design and order, would govern those over whom they never can exercise a rightful authority. (Gentleman’s Magazine, 1738, p. 591)

9

That Providence designed women for a state of dependence, and consequently of submission, I cannot doubt, when I consider their timidity of temper, their tenderness of make, the many comforts and even necessaries of life which they are unable to procure without our aid, their evident want of our protection upon a thousand occasions, their incessant study, at every age, in every state, by every means, to engage our attention, and insure our regard. (Dr James Fordyce, The Character and Conduct of the Female Sex, 1776, p. 40)

10

A woman can never be seen in a more ridiculous light, than when she appears to govern her husband; – if, unfortunately, the superiority of understanding is on her side, the apparent consciousness of that superiority betrays a weakness that renders her contemptible in the sight of ever considerate person – and it may, very probably, fix in his mind a dislike never to be eradicated. In such a case, if it should ever be your own, remember that some degree of dissimulation is commendable – so far as to let your husband’s defect appear unobserv’d. When he judges wrong, never flatly contradict, but lead him insensibly into another opinion, in so discreet a manner, that it may seem entirely his own – and, let the whole credit of every prudent determination rest on him, without indulging the foolish vanity of claiming any merit to yourself; – thus a person, of but an indifferent capacity, may be so assisted as, in many instances, to shine with a borrow’d lustre, scarce distinguishable from the native, and, by degrees, he may be brought into a kind of mechanical method of acting properly, in all the common occurrences of life (Lady Sarah Pennington, An Unfortunate Mother’s Advice to her Absent Daughters (1761), 1770, pp. 112–14)

(c) Piety

11

Never, perhaps, does a fine woman strike more deeply, than when, composed into pious recollection, and possessed with the noblest considerations, she assumes, without knowing it, superior dignity and new graces; so that the beauties of holiness seem to radiate about her, and the bystanders are almost induced to fancy her already worshipping amongst her kindred angels! (Dr James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women, 1766, Vol. 2, p. 163)

12

Though religion is indispensably necessary to both sexes, and in every possible character and station, yet a woman seems, more peculiarly, to need its enlivening supports, while her frame must be confessed to be admirably calculated for the exercise of all the tender and devout affections.

The timidity, arising from the natural weakness and delicacy of your frame; the numerous diseases, to which you are liable; that exquisite sensibility, which, in many of you, vibrates to the slightest touch of joy or sorrow; the tremulous anxiety you have for friends, children, a family, which nothing can relieve, but a sense of their being under the protection of God; the sedentariness of your life, naturally followed with low spirits or ennui, whilst we are seeking health and pleasure in the field; and the many, lonely hours, which in almost every situation, are likely to be your lot, will expose you to a number of peculiar sorrows, which you cannot, like the men, either drown in wine, or divert by dissipation.

From the era that you become marriageable, the sph...