The Puritan movement retarded the intellectual advance of women. The clearer thought which the Renaissance brought was obscured, the ideals that were beginning to enlarge the purpose of life were narrowed, and a check was put upon mental growth. As by the Roman Catholic Church women were taught to submit their minds and consciences to the priest, so under the sway of Puritanism they were taught that all nature’s gifts to mind or body were so many snares, that true life consisted in a crushing out of all aims and desires not connected with the saving of the soul, a process that was apparently facilitated by a constant contemplation of never-ending tortures supposed to be in reserve for the greater portion of mankind.
With all its tyranny and its perverted teaching on the subject of women’s position, the Roman Church was a great civilizing, educating power, the only one for centuries. Puritanism was the reverse. It aimed at undoing what had been accomplished, at checking progress. At a time when the nation needed every stimulus that could be applied to mental exertion, when political strife was choking the path of culture, Puritanism stepped in with a denunciation of learning and art as perils to humanity.
On the other hand, it must be remembered that Puritanism, with its uncompromising treatment of vice, helped to raise the standard of social purity and the ideal of womanhood. Like the fire which followed the plague, Puritanism came as a great cleansing force. But, like the fire, it destroyed while it purified. Under its teaching many attained to a high ideal of life. Every religion has its saints, and the stress and suffering of the age were calculated to bring out the qualities that go to the making of heroes and martyrs. The Puritan maiden and the Puritan wife stand for some of the noblest types of womanhood.
After the Restoration, the standard of living went up, and luxury increased as the nation righted itself after the turmoil and loss occasioned by war.
“In 1688 there were on the ‘Change more men worth £10,000 than there were in 1650 worth £1000; that £500 with a daughter was, in the latter period, deemed a larger portion than £2000 in the former; that gentlewomen in those earlier times thought themselves well clothed in a serge gown which a chambermaid would, in 1688, be ashamed to be seen in; and that besides the great increase of rich clothes, plate, jewels, and household furniture, coaches were in that time augmented a hundredfold.”
In dealing with the position of women during this period, it has to be taken into account that what would be called society was stamped with the manners of the court of Charles II. The court party forgot its former troubles and revelled in gaieties. The example was infectious, and the general laxity and extravagance were so marked that even the king himself referred to it in his speech at the close of the Parliamentary Session of 1661–2.
“I cannot but observe,” he said, “that the whole nation seems to be a little corrupted in their excess of living; sure all men spend much more in their clothes, in their diet, and all other expences than they have been used to do; I hope it has been only the excess of joy after so long suffering that has transported us to these other excesses, but let us take heed that the continuance of them does not indeed corrupt our natures. I do believe I have been faulty myself; I promise you I will reform, and if you will join with me in your several capacities, we shall by our example do more good both in city and country than any new laws would do.”
It was the reign of the senses. Beauty was the road to greatness for women, and to beauty and wit all other qualities yielded. The great ladies who stand out most prominently on the canvas are the royal favourites, the exquisite frail beauties who dazzle the vision and eclipse the women of sterner mould. Women forgot that they had any other rôle to play but one—that of syren. Those who had no power to captivate dropped into the background, were pushed aside, and forgotten. The greatest lady was she who could sell herself at the highest price, whose charms drew the largest number of bidders. What she gloried in was the rank and number of her lovers, and her ambition was to flaunt her conquests in the eyes of other women. Lady Castlemaine, Francis Stuart, Louise de Querouaille, and Nell Gwynn of immortal memory, together with many others whose task was the subjugation of man, represent the society of the Restoration period.
The disintegration of the times no doubt militated against high ideals, although the Civil War itself gave rise to the display of heroic virtues on the part of both men and women. The stern and awful discipline of the sword, far from degrading, produced a nobler type of womanhood. Through the trials entailed by ruined fortunes and blasted careers, through the agonies of bereavement, women passed triumphant, but they were not proof against the war of social forces. The conflict of feeling between the opposing parties on other than State questions sent both to extremes. The Royalists, in their hearty hatred of austerity, rushed into a wild worship of the senses. The Puritans, to express their horror of the worldliness of their foes, assumed virtues they did not possess. It has been averred that if we study the characters and lives of the great ladies of the Puritan party, we shall find much laxity under the guise of strictness. It would not be matter of surprise if, in some cases, this were so, though the bulk of the party seem free from such a reproach. The general tone of society was lowered from various causes. It is seen in everything, in the literature, on the stage, in the habits of the day. The coarse tastes of the upper classes show that the standard of public propriety was not at all commensurate with the degree of enlightenment which that age enjoyed. Wanting higher intellectual interests, women in fashionable life filled up their time with cards and dice, and if they read anything they read romances of very poor quality. This condition of things continued through the century.
“Were the men,” wrote Mary Astell in 1694, “as much neglected and as little care taken to cultivate and improve them, perhaps they would be so far from surpassing those whom they now despise, that they themselves would sink into the greatest stupidity and brutality. The preposterous returns that the most of them make to all the care that is bestow’d on them renders this no uncharitable nor improbable conjecture.”