A Serious Proposal to the Ladies 1694
Mary Astell (1666–1731), philosopher, rhetorician, and advocate for women’s education. She was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, to Peter Astell , a coal merchant, and his wife, Mary, daughter of George Errington, also a coal merchant in Newcastle.[1] Her paternal uncle, Ralph Astell, curate of St Nicholas’s, Newcastle upon Tyne, was a man of letters.[2] He educated his young niece in the philosophy that he had studied at Cambridge—under Platonists like Henry More and John Smith—and in theological doctrine. She also learned French and Latin.[3]
After moving to London in her early twenties, she struggled to support herself as a writer, depending on financial backing from patrons and admirers of her publications and projects. Her reputation as an intellectual and writer was founded on her first book, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest. By a Lover of Her Sex. (1694), and the collection of exchanges between Astell and John Norris, the last of the Cambridge Platonists, entitled Letters Concerning the Love of God (1695), in which they corresponded about the contradictions of living a spiritual life.[4]
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies was widely discussed in her day. Published anonymously, it was a text that began to construct the attitude that later historians would call feminist.[5] Astell was convinced that the main reason for women’s reputation for frivolity and lack of intellectual heft was the result of their being denied access to the same education as men, rather than inferior ability. She urged women to learn and to aspire to a life of the mind; arguing from her own experience, she affirmed that education would be far more fulfilling than the passing fads of fashion and social advancement. She argued that learning and knowledge would be the best preparation for success in marriage where mutual respect and equality could be enjoyed. She encouraged women to reject unions where husbands ruled as tyrants.
Astell proposed establishing a place of retreat where women could study and contemplate and enjoy each other’s company, a place where they could stay temporarily or live as an alternative to marriage. She engaged actively in the political, religious, and philosophical debates of the day, including those on John Locke’s questions whether knowledge came from the senses or from God.[6] Astell’s strategy was not to look to history for exemplary women; she was involved and engaged publicly with leading philosophers and influential members of society. She espoused Descartes’ theory of dualism, the separation of the mind and body, and saw herself as an embodiment of all women, who as human beings have the ability to reason. This proposal provoked censure and scorn in some, and admiration, and support in others.
Astell remained a controversial figure throughout her life, publishing a number of ripostes to her most strident critics. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasioned by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case: Which is Also Considered (1700) includes one of her most vivid contentions: “If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?”[7]
She started a charity school for the daughters of pensioners in the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, for which she found a suitable site, raised funds, and planned the curriculum.
Astell, who never married, developed breast cancer in her final years and underwent a mastectomy. Two months later, she died in Chelsea, London, where she had lived since her early twenties, and was buried in the churchyard there.
Astell was an important model and inspiration to other eighteenth-century women writers and intellectuals such as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lady Mary Chudleigh, Elizabeth Elstob, Elizabeth Thomas, Sarah Chapone, and the bluestockings of the following generation. Women’s education was her lifelong concerns. As one of the earliest English authors in the modern age of printing and mass dissemination to write what would now be called feminist analysis, her ultimate influence on the history of the English-speaking women’s movement is incalculable.[8]
[1] Ruth Perry, “Astell, Mary (1666–1731),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/814, accessed 10 June 2014.
[2] Jane Rendall, “Mary Astell,” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries (1803). Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II (Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013), vol. 5, 239-48, editorial notes 446-47, on 446.
[3] Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of all Ages and Countries (6 volumes) (London: R. Phillips, 1803), 213-222 on 213.
[4] Ruth Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), on 355.
[5] Perry, “Astell, Mary (1666–1731)”.
[6] Hays, Female Biography, on 219.
[7] Mary Astell, Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case; Which is Also Consider’d (London: Printed for John Nutt, near Stationers-Hall, 1700), accessed July 12, 2014, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/astell/marriage/marriage.html.
[8] Perry, “Astell, Mary (1666–1731).”
Bibliography
Astell, Mary. Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasion’d by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine’s Case; Which is Also Consider’d. London: Printed for John Nutt, near Stationers-Hall, 1700.
Hays, Mary. Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women of all Ages and Countries (6 volumes). London: R. Phillips, 1803, 213-222.
Perry, Ruth. “Astell, Mary (1666–1731).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009.
Perry, Ruth. The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.
Rendall, Jane. “Mary Astell.” Mary Hays, Female Biography; or, Memoirs of Illustrious and Celebrated Women, of All Ages and Countries (1803). Chawton House Library Series: Women’s Memoirs, ed. Gina Luria Walker, Memoirs of Women Writers Part II. Pickering & Chatto: London, 2013, vol. 5, 239-48, editorial notes 446-47.
Resources:
Brooklyn Museum
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art: The Dinner Party: Heritage Floor: Mary Astell
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/heritage_floor/mary_astell.php
Page citation:
Penelope Whitworth. “Mary Astell.” Project Continua (June 17, 2013): Ver. 1, [date accessed], http://www.projectcontinua.org/mary-astell/
