HISTORY 3323: WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin: A Superlative Woman For All Time
OUTLINE
THISIS STATEMENT:
Fate seems to have reserved a very unique and unwieldy task for Mary Wollstonecraft, as her life commenced in mid-Eighteenth Century England. Wollstonecraft recognized early that women like men were to have equality and independence as a right of birth. This personified her life, struggles, and achievements as a pioneering feminist.
INTRODUCTION
I. THE BEGINNINGS
A. The Wollstonecraft Family
B. Independence and Equality: Two Major Motifs
II. COMING OF AGE IN 18TH CENTURY EUROPE
A. Passion and Reason: Two Other Important Themes
B. Vindication of the Rights of Woman
III. ON BECOMING A CREDIBLE WRITER
A. The French Revolution
B. The Analytical Review
C. New Life, Birth and Death: The Conclusion
NTRODUCTION
The Eighteenth Century was a time when many fantastic dreams became reality; a time where the once phenomenal and unprecedented became commonplace; it was a time of revolution, reinvention and rethinking; a time for the least to become the greatest and the last to become first. Religion, philosophy, politics, and old social values were placed into the fires of disenchantment, discontentment, bitterness, unbearable poverty and rebellion and all were re-examined and reformed. The philosophers seized the day, ripping apart the dogmas of old theologies and demanding reason and science to take precedence over all existence.
As usual, and as radical as they were, these were men at the wheels of design and invention. This unique century, however, also gave birth to women who would not docilely follow along at man’s command, but sounded out their own way with such wisdom and unassailability that they could not go unheard. One woman stood above the rest—Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin—a woman that time has credited with being the first pioneer of the feminist movement; a movement born of her writings, philosophy, and polemic attacks upon the philosophies and ideologies of insolent egotistical men.
THE BEGINNINGS
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born 27 April, 1759 to a drunk, abusive father, Edward J Wollstonecraft, who had received at his father’s death a ten thousand pound inheritance. The inheritance was squandered even before Mary’s mother, Elizabeth Dixon (Dickson) of Ballyshannon, gave birth to her first born, Edward. Mary’s birth was inconsequential to the eighteenth century into which she was born, and a disappointment to her parents, who had hoped for another son. The loss of the family fortune resulted in the Wollstonecraft’s family embarking upon a migratory life, which was especially uncomfortable as it rooted her up from every place before it could be considered home.
This migration consisted of seven homes in the space of ten years; the longest stay was at Beverley, Yorkshire from 1768 to 1774. “During the long spell in Yorkshire, Mary attended the county school and shared lessons from the schoolmaster father of her close friend Jane Arden—her only formal education.” It was here that Edward Wollstonecraft had settled his mind on becoming a gentleman farmer. Mrs. Dickson Wollstonecraft gave birth to five more children:
A very friendly couple, Mr. Clare and his wife, the Wollstonecraft’s neighbours during their stay in Hoxton, invited Mary to study with them. Mary would spend sometimes up to a month in their home. Mr. Clare, who tutored Mary, introduced her to Fanny, another girl he tutored. ‘It was love at first sight,’ Mary later said.
Failure as a farmer and the loss of his wealth drove Edward and his family back to London in 1777. A year later, a defiant Mary left home against her parents will and became a live in companion to a rich, demanding widow, Mrs. Dawson in the city of Bath. Mary was nineteen. She continued with Mrs. Dawson for the space of two years, and then returned home to nurse her ailing mother for another two years.
After her mother’s death, Mary moved in with Fanny Blood and her family.
Independence and Equality: Major Motifs
There is no wonder why Mary Wollstonecraft developed a determined will to seek and achieve independence and equality. After witnessing the abusive treatment of her mother by her unproductive and unkind father, and having to endure the obvious preferences of both parents favor upon her older brother Edward, Mary realized that the woman’s place in the world was very insignificant except for marriage, childbearing and attending to the needs of man.
Mary’s writings primarily contained two major motifs: Independence and Equality. Mary was victim to the rules that caused not only preference toward her older brother, but legal dictates that placed practically all family wealth and control in his hands. But even more disconcerting about the schismatic social and legal rules of her day were the strict and seemingly unmovable perimeters that locked the female gender out of education. In her most famous and well known work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and virtually all other writings, Mary argues for equality for women in the family as well as in social and political institutions:
Equality across gender lines would certainly yield the other valuable commodity—independence. Wollstonecraft debates and attacks the philosophers, politicians, and famous writers/thinkers of her day; at times referring to the respected works of philosophers like Hume and Locke, with an interpretation that supported her claims. She lambasted Burke for his inconsistencies on independence and famous clergyman, Bishop Charles Maurice de Tallyrand Perigord for his speech on independence that failed to speak of liberation and justice for women.
COMING OF AGE IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE
Passion vs. Reason: Two Other Significant Themes
Another characteristic which makes Wollstonecraft so unique as a feminist pioneer is her undeniable passion as a woman; passion for life, friends, family and a very healthy attraction to men. Too often when women contend with the rule and authority of men, they are assailed as men haters, “dykish,” etc. This is certainly not the case with Wollstonecraft. When her relationship with Gilbert Emley, William Godwin are taken into account, it is difficult to understand, at first glance at least, how someone so passionate in love, could find the strength and conviction to pursue the of reason, which was turning the eighteenth century upside down, except the way women were looked upon.
Wollstonecraft’s first love was artist Henry Fuseli, also a friend and associate of Joseph Johnson. A relationship that was short lived because of his marriage to an unyielding and uncompromising wife. She met Gilbert Emley while in France. It was the American artist that drove Wollstonecraft to two suicide attempts. Not until she met William Godwin, a philosopher and poet, did she find the friendship in marriage that was her thesis in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Although William Godwin could not be described as a lady’s man, Wollstonecraft fell deeply in love with the philosopher and enjoyed his uncommonly philosophical Godwin recognized the passion, undoubtedly more deeply than any others; it transformed him, even altering his convictions against the union of marriage.
Vindication of the Rights of Woman
Mary Wollstonecraft’s most famous work is without doubt The Vindication of The Rights of Woman. Although some scholars agree that it is not her best. This work was written and published in 1792 and was somewhat hurried, perhaps the cause for what some critics claim to be a work unpolished and lacking in structure. It is however, the simple innate characteristics concerning the identicalness of man and woman that Wollstonecraft so amply argued that has allowed it to not only pass the test of time, but to find a resurgence of interest and validity in feminist philosophy, history, and literature since .
Originally, The Vindication of The Rights of Woman was to be a three volume work. No other volumes were ever published, however, a interconnected work was later posthumously published by Wollstonecraft’s husband, William Godwin under the title The Wrongs of Woman; or, Maria. The basic theme in Wollstonecraft’s argument is that women are not inferior to men, even granting the superiority of male physical strength:
I am aware that this argument would carry me further than it may be supposed I wish to go; but I follow truth, and still adhering to my first position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give man a natural superiority over woman; and this is the only solid basis on which the superiority of the sex can be built. But I still insist, that not only the virtue, but the knowledge of the two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the same means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half being—one of Rousseau’s wild chimeras.
ON BECOMING A CREDIBLE WRITER
The French Revolution
From the Prologue of her book, Her Own Woman, Diane Jacobs very eloquently describes Wollstonecraft’s first up close, personal yet optimistic encounter with the French Revolution:
At the height of the French Revolution, a thirty-three-year-old Englishwoman arrived in the port of Calais. She was a foreign correspondent, commissioned by a famous London Publisher to write about all the momentous events since the fall of the Bastille. The watchwords of the Revolution—liberty, fraternity, equality—spoke to her won deepest desires. Since childhood, she battled injustice…She was tall and pretty but had no dowry or inheritance; only her courage and tenacity pushed her forward…A year before, she had become internationally famous when she had published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, demanding liberty for the female sex.
It may very well be argued that the French Revolution served the spirit and aims of Mary Wollstonecraft as if made to order for her philosophical and socio-political posits against the old regime and the new order that was being frantically and chaotically devised on a daily basis. The French Revolution was a time for radical change in France and throughout Europe. The guillotine best describes the seriousness of the times; not even King Louie and Marie Antoinette could escape its wrath. It eventually caught up with the man who sent more to their death than any other—Robespierre. Wollstonecraft by no means was on an errand of glamour. Popularity and fame one day could easily send one to his or her death the next. The French Revolution held no respect for women; in fact, women were met with the same equality and justice of men when it came to crime during the period of “terror.” Madame Roland, for example, another female activist during the revolution, met her death at the guillotine.
The Analytical Review
Wollstonecraft contributed to the Analytical Review from 1788-1797. It was the creation of Joseph Johnson and Thomas Christie in May of 1988. The Analytical Review specialized in controversial topics and subjects. It was radical in its critiques and summaries of publications of the time, especially those of political, philosophical, and religious origin. It was, of course the perfect outlet for pioneering feminist and radical polemicist Mary Wollstonecraft. Other popular contributors consisted of Henry Fuseli, George Dyer, William Cowper, Thomas Christie, George Anderson, Alexander Geddes, John Hewlett, John Aiken, James Currie, Joshua Toulmin and Mary Hays. Wollstonecraft began contributing to the Review in Her relationship with Joseph Johnson
Renewed Life, Birth and Death: The Conclusion
After wrestling with her passions in two failed relationships, Wollstonecraft entered into yet another unorthodox relationship with philosopher and writer William Godwin. Godwin who enjoyed the company of beautiful ladies, was not so similarly looked upon. “In person he was extremely unattractive; his lean face, with a profile like that of a Roman coin and an enormously elongated nose, had not improved with the years that had thinned the locks on his high forehead…worse of all he was a boring conversationalist…”
Wollstonecraft had been introduced to William Godwin prior to her trip to Scandinavia. They renewed their acquaintance upon her return, and became lovers in 1797. After several months of intimacies between the two, Mary discovered that she was going to have another child. Godwin was by no means amenable to marriage. His love for Mary, the compatibility they shared in practically all things provided the footing to contradict his own philosophical judgments against matrimony. “William Godwin had publicly declaimed against marriage, and was more or less pledged to a considerable set of people to uphold his principles.” After discovering Mary’s pregnancy, Godwin acquiesced.
He argued with a good deal of generosity, that he could not bring himself to wound again an already smitten heart for the sake of an abstraction…however objectionable the theory of marriage might be, in individual cases it was very necessary…They were, therefore, very quietly married at Old St. Pancras Church on March 29th, 1797…”
Mary too was in love and had found new life in Godwin. But, it was short lived as Wollstonecraft died giving birth to her second daughter, Mary Godwin, who would later become famous in her own right as a writer and the wife of the famous poet, Percy Bysse Shelley.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbey, Ruth. “Back to the Future: Marriage as Friendship in the Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft.” Hypatia. 14:3 (Summer 1999): 78-95.
Botting, Eileen Hunt. Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the
Transformation of the Family. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Conniff, James. “Edmund Burke and His Critics: The Case of Mary Wollstonecraft.”
Journal of the History of Ideas 60.2 (April 1999): 299-318.
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 3rd ed. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Editor: Candace Ward. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1996.
Wollstonecraft, Mary. The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft. Editors: Janet M. Todd and Marilyn Butler. Vol. 7. Washington Square, NY: New York University Press, 1989.
Women in European History 