Some Reflections Upon Marriage. / With additions.

by Mary Astell

[1]. This was wrote in the Beginning of the present Century.

Thus, whether it be Wit or Beauty that a Man’s in Love with, there are no great Hopes of a lasting Happiness; Beauty, with all the Helps of Art, is of no long Date; the more it is help’d, the sooner it decays; and he, who only or chiefly chose for Beauty, will in a little Time find the same Reason for another Choice. Nor is that sort of Wit which he prefers, of a more sure Tenure; or allowing it to last, it will not always please. For that which has not a real Excellency and Value in it self, entertains no longer than that giddy Humour which recommended it to us holds; and when we can like on no just, or on very little Ground, ’tis certain a Dislike will arise, as lightly and as unaccountably. And it is not improbable that such a Husband may in a little Time, by ill Usage, provoke such a Wife to exercise her Wit, that is, her Spleen on him, and then it is not hard to guess how very agreeable it will be to him.

In a word, when we have reckon’d up how many look no further than the making of their Fortune, as they call it; who don’t so much as propose to themselves any Satisfaction in the Woman to whom they plight their Faith, seeking only to be Masters of her Estate, that so they may have Money enough to indulge all their irregular Appetites; who think they are as good as can be expected, if they are but, according to the fashionable Term, Civil Husbands; when we have taken the Number of your giddy Lovers, who are not more violent in their Passion than they are certain to repent of it; when to these you have added such as marry without any Thought at all, further than that it is the Custom of the World, what others have done before them, that the Family must be kept up, the antient Race preserv’d, and therefore their kind Parents and Guardians choose as they think convenient, without ever consulting the Young one’s Inclinations, who must be satisfied, or pretend so at least, upon Pain of their Displeasure, and that heavy Consequence of it, Forfeiture of their Estate: These set aside, I fear there will be but a small Remainder to marry out of better Considerations; and even amongst the Few that do, not one in a Hundred takes Care to deserve his Choice.

But do the Women never choose amiss? Are the Men only in Fault? That is not pretended; for he who will be just, must be forced to acknowledge, that neither Sex are always in the right. A Woman, indeed, can’t properly be said to Choose; all that is allow’d her, is to Refuse or Accept what is offer’d. And when we have made such reasonable Allowances as are due to the Sex, perhaps they may not appear so much in Fault as one would at first imagine, and a generous Spirit will find more Occasion to Pity, than to Reprove. But sure I transgress——it must not be suppos’d that the Ladies can do amiss! He is but an ill-bred Fellow who pretends that they need Amendment! They are, no doubt on’t, always in the right, and most of all when they take Pity on distressed Lovers! Whatever they say carries an Authority that no Reason can resist, and all that they do must needs be Exemplary! This is the Modish Language, nor is there a Man of Honour amongst the whole Tribe, that would not venture his Life, nay, and his Salvation too, in their Defence, if any but himself attempts to injure them. But I must ask Pardon if I can’t come up to these Heights, nor flatter them with the having no Faults, which is only a malicious Way of continuing and increasing their Mistakes.

Women, it’s true, ought to be treated with Civility; for since a little Ceremony and out-side Respect is all their Guard, all the Privilege that’s allow’d them, it were barbarous to deprive them of it; and because I would treat them civilly, I would not express my Civility at the usual rate. I would not, under Pretence of Honouring and paying a mighty Deference to the Ladies, call them Fools, or what’s worse, to their Faces; For what are all the fine Speeches and Submissions that are made, but an abusing them in a well-bred Way? She must be a Fool with a Witness, who can believe a Man, Proud and Vain as he is, will lay his boasted Authority, the Dignity and Prerogative of his Sex, one Moment at her Feet, but in Prospect of taking it up again to more Advantage; he may call himself her Slave a few Days, but it is only in order to make her his all the rest of his Life.

Indeed that mistaken Self-Love that reigns in the most of us, both Men and Women, that over-good Opinion we have of ourselves, and Desire that others should have of us, makes us swallow every Thing that looks like Respect, without examining how wide it is from what it appears to be. For nothing is in Truth a greater Outrage than Flattery and feign’d Submissions; the plain English of which is this, “I have a very mean Opinion both of your Understanding and Vertue; you are Weak enough to be impos’d on, and Vain enough to snatch at the Bait I throw; there’s no Danger of your finding out my Meaning, or disappointing me of my Ends. I offer you Incense, ’tis true, but you are like to pay for’t, and to make me a Recompence for your Folly, in imagining I would give my self this Trouble, did I not hope, nay, were I not sure, to find my own Account in it. If for nothing else, you’ll serve at least as an Exercise of my Wit; and how much soever you swell with my Breath, ’tis I deserve the Praise for talking so well on so poor a Subject. We, who make the Idols, are the greater Deities; and as we set you up, so it is in our Power to reduce you to your first Obscurity, or to somewhat worse, to Contempt; you are therefore only on your good Behaviour, and are like to be no more than what we please to make you.” This is the Flatterer’s Language aside, this is the true Sense of his Heart, whatever his Grimace may be before the Company.

And if this be the true Meaning of honourable Courtship, what is meant by that Jargon, that Profusion of Love and Admiration which passes for Gallantry, when either of the Parties are married? Is it not the utmost Scurrility, in that it supposes she is, or that he hopes to make her, what good Manners forbids to name? And since he makes so free with the Lady’s Honour, can she afford him a civiller Answer, than what her Footman may deliver with a Crab-tree? But I correct my self,——this might be the Air of a haughty Roman Prude; our British Beauties are far more Gentle and Well-bred. And he who has the same Designs upon other Mens Relations, is sometimes so civil as to bear with the Outrages offer’d to his own.

Not but that ’tis possible, and sometimes Matter of Fact, to express our selves beyond the Truth in Praise of a Person, and yet not be guilty of Flattery; but then we must Think what we Say, and Mean what we Profess. We may be so blinded by some Passion or other, especially Love, which in Civil and Good-natur’d Persons is apt to exceed, as to believe some Persons more deserving than really they are, and to pay them greater Respect and Kindness than is in Strictness due to them. But this is not the present Case; for our fine Speech-makers doat too much on themselves to have any great Passion for another. Their Eyes are commonly too much fix’d on their own Excellencies, to view another’s good Qualities through a Magnifying-Glass; at least if ever they turn that End of the Perspective towards their Neighbours, ’tis only in Respect and Reference to themselves. They are their own Centres, they find a Disproportion in every Line that does not tend thither, and in the next Visit they make, you shall hear all the fine Things they had said, repeated to the new Object, and nothing remembred of the former but her Vanity, or something else as ridiculous, which serves for a Foil, or a Whet to Discourse. For let there be ever so many Wits in the Company, Conversation would languish, and they would be at a Loss, did not a little Censoriousness come in at a Need to help them.

Let us then treat the Ladies as civilly as may be, but let us not do it by Flattering them, but by endeavouring to make them such as may truly deserve our hearty Esteem and Kindness. Men ought really for their own Sakes, to do what in them lies to make Women Wise and Good, and then it might be hoped they themselves would effectually Study and Practice that Wisdom and Vertue they recommend to others. But so long as Men, even the best of them, who do not outrage the Women they pretend to adore, have base and unworthy Ends to serve, it is not to be expected that they should consent to such Methods as would certainly disappoint them. They would have their own Relations do well; it is their Interest: but it sometimes happens to be for their Turn that another Man’s should not, and then their Generosity fails them, and no Man is apter to find Fault with another’s dishonourable Actions, than he who is ready to do, or perhaps has done the same himself.

And as Men have little Reason to expect Happiness when they marry only for the Love of Money, Wit, or Beauty, as has been already shewn, so much less can a Woman expect a tolerable Life, when she goes upon these Considerations. Let the Business be carried as prudently as it can be on the Woman’s Side, a reasonable Man can’t deny that she has by much the harder Bargain: because she puts her self intirely into her Husband’s Power, and if the Matrimonial Yoke be grievous, neither Law nor Custom afford her that Redress which a Man obtains. He who has Sovereign Power does not value the Provocations of a Rebellious Subject; he knows how to subdue him with Ease, and will make himself obey’d: But Patience and Submission are the only Comforts that are left to a poor People, who groan under Tyranny, unless they are Strong enough to break the Yoke, to Depose and Abdicate, which, I doubt, would not be allow’d of here. For whatever may be said against Passive-Obedience in another Case, I suppose there’s no Man but likes it very well in this; how much soever Arbitrary Power may be dislik’d on a Throne, not Milton, nor B. H—, nor any of the Advocates of Resistance, would cry up Liberty to poor Female Slaves, or plead for the Lawfulness of Resisting a private Tyranny.