For centuries the society had considered women’s
role only in the household, their ultimate goal in life was to get married, and
their duty was to just stay that way. It is no surprise that married women were
supposed to be inferior to their husbands, in “To the Ladies”, Lady Mary
Chudleigh even saw the relationship the same as that of a master and a servant.
Marriage in her eyes was nothing but a “fatal knot” (3) and a “nuptial contract”
(12), under which the wives had no freedom “to look, to laugh, or speak” (11).
We are lucky enough to live in today’s society where women’s rights and sexual
equality have come a long way since Chudleigh’s time. However, I think that
there is still an underlying belief that marriage is absolutely essential to a
satisfying life. I recently read an article about how being single is still
such a big deal in society’s eyes and I think it is very thought-provoking.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
In Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s “An Answer to a Love-Letter
in Verse”, the speaker is refusing the pursuit of a married man and chastising
the man for being so vile and unfaithful with love and marriage. Marriage back
then were often not based on love, and as suggested in “To the Ladies,” men
were superior to their wives who could not ask for a divorce, therefore wooing
another woman was not a big deal for married men. The speaker condemns the man
for not being “bound by vows, and unrestrained by shame” (15) when he decides
to write her a love letter not because of her charm but because she is “new”
(6). She then insinuates that the man will soon be moving on and wooing other
women – soon some other nymph inflict the pain” (31), further stressing on men’s
fickleness.
Hannah More
Hannah More’s “Slavery, a Poem” is a poem about
banning slave trade in the British colonies and outlawing slavery itself. More
criticized the British for feeling so superior over people with “casual colour
of the skin” (6) and having a double standard due to this prejudice. She said
that the same feeling of national pride was “In Afric scourged, in Rome deified”
(24). Why should the British be glorified as hero for conquering the “sabled
race” (2), taking away their freedoms and possessions, killing the ones who
didn’t obey? More made a firm accusation of the British being “White Savage” (25)
who sugar-coated their immoral and illiberal enforcement of slavery – “Conquest
is pillage with a nobler name” (40).
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