ENGC36H3 Lecture 7: lecture 7
Document Summary
Mix of class in women"s writing dealing with social class. Women were a commodity to transmit inheritance and property. Women had little say in who they married. Thought of as passive in entering courtship and marriage. Women were never allowed to solicit men explicitly. Books were published on how to conduct yourself in public. Modes of conduct were taken seriously and there were social consequences and sometimes greater consequences. Women being put in prisons or insane asylum, placed by their husbands. If you were a woman you could go into prostitution or work as a servant in order to make money while single, otherwise trapped in the domestic sphere. Writing was thought of not being very proper for a woman. A lot of their works were circulated privately. Astell critiques how women are consumed with their vanity and external beauty, rather than their soul.
