Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the progress of society
- 1 Anglican Whig feminism in England, 1690–1760: self-love, reason and social benevolence
- 2 From savage to Scotswoman: the history of femininity
- 3 Roman, Gothic and medieval women: the historicisation of womanhood, 1750–c.1804
- 4 Catharine Macaulay's histories of England: liberty, civilisation and the female historian
- 5 Good manners and partial civilisation in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft
- 6 The history women and the population men, 1760–1830
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Introduction: the progress of society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: the progress of society
- 1 Anglican Whig feminism in England, 1690–1760: self-love, reason and social benevolence
- 2 From savage to Scotswoman: the history of femininity
- 3 Roman, Gothic and medieval women: the historicisation of womanhood, 1750–c.1804
- 4 Catharine Macaulay's histories of England: liberty, civilisation and the female historian
- 5 Good manners and partial civilisation in the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft
- 6 The history women and the population men, 1760–1830
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Let me observe to you, that the position of women in society, is somewhat different from what it was a hundred years ago, or as it was sixty, or I will say thirty years since. Women are now so highly cultivated, and political subjects are at present of so much importance, of such high interest, to all human beings who live together in society, you can hardly expect, Helen, that you, as a rational being, can go through the world as it now is, without forming any opinions on points of public importance. You cannot, I conceive, satisfy yourself with the common namby-pamby, little missy phrase, ‘ladies have nothing to do with politics’… Female influence must, will, and ought to exist on political subjects as on all others; but this influence should always be domestic, not public – the customs of society have so ruled it.
(Maria Edgeworth, Helen, 1834)This is a study of the implications of the Enlightenment for women in eighteenth-century Britain. It explores the impact of the great discovery of the British Enlightenment – that there is such a thing as society, that humans are principally intelligible as social beings, and that society itself is subject to change – on both male and female writers of this period. It considers the degree to which investigations of society by Enlightenment writers were inflected, even, at times, motivated by their growing interest in women as distinct and influential social members.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009