Mary Astell on Marriage and Lockean Slavery
History of Political Thought 35 (4):717–38 (2014)
Abstract
In the 1706 third edition of her Reflections upon Marriage, Mary Astell alludes to John Locke’s definition of slavery in her descriptions of marriage. She describes the state of married women as being ‘subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man’ (Locke, Two Treatises, II.22). Recent scholars maintain that Astell does not seriously regard marriage as a form of slavery in the Lockean sense. In this paper, I defend the contrary position: I argue that Astell does seriously regard marriage as a form of slavery for women and that she condemns this state of affairs as morally wrong. I also show that, far from criticizing Locke, Astell draws on key passages in his Thoughts concerning Education to urge that women be educated to retain their liberty.Author's Profile
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Citations of this work
Mary Astell on Bad Custom and Epistemic Injustice.Allauren Samantha Forbes - 2019 - Hypatia 34 (4):777-801.
Selfhood and Self-government in Women’s Religious Writings of the Early Modern Period.Jacqueline Broad - 2019 - International Journal of Philosophical Studies 27 (5):713-730.
The Epistemology of Testimony: Locke and His Critics.Kenneth L. Pearce - forthcoming - In Stephen Howard & Jack Stetter (eds.), The Edinburgh Critical History of Early Modern and Enlightenment Philosophy. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mary Astell’s radical criticism of gender inequality.Martin Fog Lantz Arndal - 2021 - Intellectual History Review 31 (1):91-110.
‘Slaves among Us’: The Climate and Character of Eighteenth-Century Philosophical Discussions of Slavery.Margaret Watkins - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (1):e12393.