Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T21:15:15.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Back to the Future: Marriage as Friendship in the Thought of Mary Wollstonecraft

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Ruth Abbey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

If liberal theory is to move forward, it must take the political nature of family relations seriously. The beginnings of such a liberalism appear in Mary Wollstonecraft's work. Wollstonecraft's depiction of the family as a fundamentally political institution extends liberal values into the private sphere by promoting the ideal of marriage as friendship. However, while her model of marriage diminishes arbitrary power in family relations, she seems unable to incorporate enduring sexual relations between married partners.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 14 , Issue 3 , Summer 1999 , pp. 78 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbey, Ruth. 1997. Odd bedfellows: Nietzsche and Mill on marriage. History of European Ideas 23(2–4): 81–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1980. Nichomachean ethics. Trans. Ross, David. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Astell, Mary. 1986. The first English feminist: Reflections upon marriage and other writings by Mary Astell. ed. Hill, Bridget. Aldershot: Gower.Google Scholar
Butler, Melissa. 1991. Early liberal roots of feminism: John Locke and the attack on patriarchy. In Feminist interpretations and political theory, ed. Shanley, Mary Lyndon and Pateman, Carole. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Coole, Diana. 1988. Women in political theory. Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books.Google Scholar
Davis, G., Sullivan, B., and Yeatman, A., eds. 1997. The new contractualism? Melbourne: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1993. Politics of friendship. American Imago 50(3): 353–91.Google Scholar
Falco, Maria J. ed., 1996. Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Moira. 1992. Mary Wollstonecraft and the problematic of slavery. Feminist Review 42: 82–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1993. Feminism and modern friendship. In Friendship: A philosophical reader, ed. Badhwar, Neera Kapur. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Green, Karen. 1995. The woman of reason. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, Jean. 1986. Philosophy and feminist thinking. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Claudia L. 1995. Equivocal beings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Cora. 1986. Sea changes: Essays on culture and feminism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
McKenzie, Cattiona. 1993. Reason and sensibility: The ideal of women's self‐governance in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft. Hypatia 8(4): 35–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendus, Susan. 1989. The marriage of true minds: The ideal of marriage in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill. In Sexuality and subordination, ed. Mendus, S. and Rendall, J.London: Routledge.Google Scholar
de. Montaigne, Michel. 1965. Essays. Trans. Florio, John. London: Dent.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1996. The sleep of reason. The Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 February, 17–18.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1989. Humanist liberalism. In Liberalism and the moral life, ed. Rosenblum, N. L.Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The sexual contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pateman, Carole. 1989. The disorder of women Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
de Pisan, Christine. 1983. The book of the city of ladies. Trans. Richards, Earl Jeffrey. London: Picador.Google Scholar
de Pisan, Christine. 1985. The treasure of the city of ladies. Trans. Lawson, Sarah. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Poston, Carol H. 1996. Mary Wollstonecraft and ‘the Body Politic.” In Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Falco, M. J.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Rossi, Alice S. ed., 1970. Essays on sex equality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean Jacques. 1966. Emile. Trans. Foxley, B.London: Dent.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Virginia. 1992. A vindication of political virtue: The political theory of Mary Wollstonecraft. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sapiro, Virginia. 1996. Wollstonecraft, feminism, and democracy: ‘Being Bastilled.” In Feminist interpretations of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Falco, M. J.University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Shanley, Mary Lyndon. 1981. Marital slavery and friendship: John Stuart Mill's “The subjection of women.” Political Theory 9(2): 229–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slomp, Gabriella. 1994. Hobbes and the equality of women. Political Studies 42(3): 441–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1996. Communitarianism, Taylor‐made. Australian Quarterly 68(1): 1–9.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1997. Liberal politics and the public sphere. In Philosophical arguments. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomaselli, Sylvana ed., 1995. The vindication of the rights of men and the vindication of the rights of woman by Mary Wollstonecraft Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Urbinati, Nadia. 1991. J. S. Mill on androgyny and marriage. Political Theory 19(4): 626–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1975. Maria or the wrongs of woman. ed. Ferguson, Moira. New York: W. W. Morton.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1985. Vindication of the rights of woman. ed. Brody, M.London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1987. A short residence in Sweden. ed. Holmes, Richard. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1989a. On the treatment of servants. In The works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Todd, Janet and Butler, Marilyn. Vol. 4 London: William Pickering.Google Scholar
Wollstonecraft, Mary. 1989b. Thoughts on the education of daughters. In The works of Mary Wollstonecraft, ed. Todd, Janet and Butler, Marilyn. Vol. 4. London: William Pickering.Google Scholar