Some Reflections Upon Marriage
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Sprache:Englisch
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ePUB
Kopierschutz
Ja
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Ja
Erscheinungsdatum
15.06.2015
Verlag
University of Illinois PressSeitenzahl
158 (Printausgabe)
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1000 KB
Sprache
Englisch
EAN
9780252097911
"If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?" For many parts of the world such a bold protest resonates as tellingly today as it did three hundred years ago in England when Mary Astell (1666-1731) confronted the appalling moral and legal subordination of women, rich and poor alike, who entered into matrimony with the cards stacked heavily in the husband's favor. It is Astell's unstinting recognition of the arbitrary restraints imposed on women and her vigorous writing on their behalf that make her one of the earliest English feminists in history. Although prominent in her lifetime as the author of a number of treatises on women's education as well as on theological, philosophical, and political subjects, Astell was nearly forgotten by the nineteenth century. However, since the appearance of Bridget Hill's comprehensive study of Astell (1956) and Ruth Perry's definitive biography (1986), various scholars have helped restore this original thinker and polemicist to her proper intellectual, religious, political, and social contexts.
At first glance Astell's family origins were not especially propitious for a young woman seeking intellectual achievement. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 November 1666, the first of two children of Peter Astell, a coal merchant, and of Mary Errington, who was also the daughter of a coal merchant, Mary enjoyed financial security but depended mainly on her paternal uncle Ralph Astell, curate of St. Nicholas's, in Newcastle, for her early education. As Perry observes, in the 1660s and 1670s many women in northern England were illiterate. Despite her good fortune in having this well-intentioned mentor, Astell's uncle was suspended for drunkenness in the pulpit in 1677 and was generally in a downward spiral ever since his difficulties over liturgical issues during the Interregnum, when he was the vicar of Frodsham in Cheshire. Ironically, it was probably Ralph Astell's involuntary retirement from his clerical duties that allowed him the leisure to concentrate on his niece's education to good effect. As Sarah Apetrei remarks:
It is possible that her uncle's disappointments taught the young Mary an ambivalence towards the office of priest, which she revered as ancient and apostolic, but knew to be inhabited by fallible men. The contrast between his underachievement and her own illustrious reputation must have struck her in later life and confirmed her distrust of conventional wisdom about the disparity between male and female capacities.
The timing of this education also coincided with the death of Mary's father in 1678, after which her family were under more straitened circumstances. Whatever his deficiencies, however, Ralph obviously was an important influence on his niece and in the end endowed her with his considerable library, whose books were adorned with her marginalia, to the delight of curious scholars today.
At first glance Astell's family origins were not especially propitious for a young woman seeking intellectual achievement. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 November 1666, the first of two children of Peter Astell, a coal merchant, and of Mary Errington, who was also the daughter of a coal merchant, Mary enjoyed financial security but depended mainly on her paternal uncle Ralph Astell, curate of St. Nicholas's, in Newcastle, for her early education. As Perry observes, in the 1660s and 1670s many women in northern England were illiterate. Despite her good fortune in having this well-intentioned mentor, Astell's uncle was suspended for drunkenness in the pulpit in 1677 and was generally in a downward spiral ever since his difficulties over liturgical issues during the Interregnum, when he was the vicar of Frodsham in Cheshire. Ironically, it was probably Ralph Astell's involuntary retirement from his clerical duties that allowed him the leisure to concentrate on his niece's education to good effect. As Sarah Apetrei remarks:
It is possible that her uncle's disappointments taught the young Mary an ambivalence towards the office of priest, which she revered as ancient and apostolic, but knew to be inhabited by fallible men. The contrast between his underachievement and her own illustrious reputation must have struck her in later life and confirmed her distrust of conventional wisdom about the disparity between male and female capacities.
The timing of this education also coincided with the death of Mary's father in 1678, after which her family were under more straitened circumstances. Whatever his deficiencies, however, Ralph obviously was an important influence on his niece and in the end endowed her with his considerable library, whose books were adorned with her marginalia, to the delight of curious scholars today.
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