Rights For Women

The cry of rights for women'-which made a loud din at the century's end-was raised, faintly but clearly, in the first decade of the century by Mary Astell, who could see much that was wrong in the relations between men and women. In her Reflections on Marriage she pleaded that men should look on women as Reasonable Creatures and not confine them 'with chain and block to the chimney corner'. What happened, when a man looked for a wife? 'What will she bring? is the first inquiry. How many acres? Or how much ready coin?' This was all wrong, but so was marrying for love-'an heroic action, which makes a mighty noise in the world, partly because of its rarity and partly in regard to its extravagancy'. Whether a man married for love or money, he was governed by irregular appetites, and not by Reason. . .. Let the Soul be principally considered and regard had in the first place to a good understanding, a virtuous mind... .'

What poor woman, asked Mary Astell, was ever taught that she should have a higher design than to get herself a husband? Both sexes thought a husband so valuable and rare a commodity that 'scarce a man who can keep himself clean and make a bow but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any woman. If women were 'duly principled and taught to know the world' there would be no trouble; men need not fear that women of sense and learning would be too good for them, for woman's genius could never top that of man.

Mary Astell was a century before her time. For young women there was still no future but marriage; for ambitious young men there was still no prop like an heiress. In high life were seen shameless commercial marriages in plenty. Any young spark who demurred because the heiress selected for him was uncomely could expect as much sympathy as was bestowed by Sir Anthony Absolute, in The Rivals., on his son: 'Odds life, Sir! If you have the estate you must take it with the livestock on it, as it stands!' In Sheridan's The Duenna Don Jerome assures his son:

I must confess I had a great affection for your mother's ducats, but that was all, boy. I married her for her fortune and she took me in obedience to her father and a very happy couple we were. We never expected any love from one another and so we were never disappointed. If we grumbled a little now and then it was soon over for we were never fond enough to quarrel; and when the good woman died, why, why, I had as lief she had lived....

Society, of which the froth was made up of wits, fops, rakes and courtesans, still enlivened its wooing with continental fripperies. It sat its women in swings and pushed them high in the air (a fastidious lover was supposed to tie his lady's clothes round her feet with his hat-band, to prevent the bystanders from seeing the colour of her garters). It also sat its women on sofas. The popularity of this seductive item of furniture (the idea of which was borrowed from the Orient) was soon to distress the moralists. The sofa gave women an admirable opportunity to look their best while languishing, and to show feet and ankles in the process. Crebillon fils wrote a conte libertin, Le Sopha, in which a disembodied spirit moves from sofa to sofa and describes what happens on them all. If it is true, says the spirit of the sofa, that no man is a hero to those who live alongside him, equally no woman is virtuous in the eyes of her sofa. The Chippendales nevertheless turned out this aid to seduction without a qualm. They also produced courting settees and various types of lovers' chairs, but none of these saw so much activity as the sofa.