Tag Archives: Awesome Group 2

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage

Reflection on Editing “A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage addressed to the Unmarried, of Both Sexes” by E. Cother

Samantha Poole

Reflections on the Editing Process

The experience of editing “A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage addressed to the Unmarried, of Both Sexes” by Cother, E. was surreal in all of the questions the document raised. Questions such as: Was it truly necessary to have a book explaining how to propose and “promote” a lawful marriage? Could this book be considered a conduct book on marriage and proposing? Did citizens of London actually read this book in search of guidance? These questions along with many others were persistently buzzing through my head while I was editing and reading the piece.

An aspect that I found to be quite interesting about the text was the necessity of the text during the time period. The text made me reflect and think a lot more about the type of culture it was published in, and made me realize that A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage addressed to the Unmarried, of Both Sexes was published during the same time conduct books were exceedingly popular. With this in mind the document helped me infer that it was published in a society that needed strict social guidelines, whether it be how to act in certain company as a male or female, or merely how to act in order to “promote a lawful marriage”. This realization helped me reflect on the amount of social constructs  present in each citizen’s life. Reading Cother’s text helped me understand the inescapable amount of pressure placed on an individual in the eighteenth century, pressures to act in a certain manner with certain members of society, the pressure for women to be considered beautiful and virtuous, and the pressures associated with marriage in that marriage was seen as an economic move, meant to better one’s wealth and social standing.

Another aspect of the piece by Cother which was quite intriguing was the Articles which start on page 35 which explains a proposed two offices to be set at “two different parts of the city”, one a “ladies office” and one a “gentlemen’s office” (Cother 35). Cother explains that this separation is meant “to avoid, as much as possible, all impertinent curiosity of either Sex” (36). Then proceeds to explain in detail that each office will have their own register, their own books, etc. to be kept separate at all times. This strange circumstance Cother brings up highlights the anxieties which existed in the 18th century towards sexuality, to the extent that as Cother illustrates both sexes were not supposed to be in the same office space due to the chance of “curiosity of either Sex”. I didn’t find Cother’s explanation of this issue of the anxieties of sexuality surprising; however I found it remarkable in the insight it lends its reader. Cother inconspicuously explains in his articles starting on page 35 the real fears patriarchal eighteenth century British society had concerning women’s bodies. The beginning of the Articles is definitely extraordinary in that it explains the thought process of the patriarchy when faced with the thought of women possibly gaining the right to work in such an office, that thought being separation of the sexes is absolutely essential for any office properly function. The male anxieties expressed in such a short part of Cother’s text explains not only the mindset and thoughts of the patriarchal society but also the abnormality of women working during the 18th century, a time in which men were the sole providers of their families. Cother suggests that breaking the domestic and public spheres cannot be so simple as merely allowing women into the male dominated public sphere but created a women’s public sphere, separate as to not distract or instill “curiosity” into the male population. The necessity of creating another separate public sphere for women is interesting in that through Cother’s allusion to this need for gender binaries in the work place he is explaining the anxieties associated with the differences in the female body which serve as a distraction and may disrupt the productivity of any given office.

Overall, A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage addressed to the Unmarried, of Both Sexes by E. Cother serves as a source of insight into the anxieties associated with women and the separation of the spheres while also illuminating the process of proposing marriage in the 18th century. Cother’s work also provides us with questions to modern day issues such as the anxieties still associated with the female body today:  perhaps we in the 21st century have a different outlook on sexuality and “curiosity” associated with both the male and female body. The topics of anxiety and sexuality addressed by Cother are still incredibly relevant to both the 18th century and the 21st century. This amazing connection through Cother’s written work allows us insight into the societal norms and construct, as well as the anxieties associated with the separation of spheres, a problem we still face today in that women don’t have equal pay and are typically expected to work in areas which have been traditionally “feminized”.

 

Works Cited

Cother, E. “A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage Addressed to the Unmarried, of Both Sexes.” Editorial. 18th Connect. TypeWright, n.d. Web.

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage, Uncategorized

Digital Humanities Project: “A Serious Proposal For Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage.”

Awesome Group 2 reviewed the document “A Serious Proposal For Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage. Address’d to the Unmarried, of both Sexes” by E. Cother. This 75-page document outlines the need for, essentially, a kind of dating service, and then outlines explicitly how that service would operate. I will be focusing mainly on the Articles covered in the pages I edited, and putting it in the context of ideas presented by Carole Pateman, who theorizes about the politics of consent. Despite their forced exclusion from the public sphere and the political limitations imposed upon their gender – as Pateman describes it – Cother sees women as citizens with agency, and develops a system that allows them to act as such (though only within that microcosm).

Cother identifies a problem that adults still deal with in the twenty-first century: how hard it can be to meet people. This would have been even more of a challenge in Cother’s day, especially for young ladies, when people are hard-pressed to interact with people outside of their established acquaintances. It would not be proper for a young woman to simply go up to a man she does not know in a shop or a bar and strike up a conversation, for example. (It would not even be appropriate for a young woman to go to a shop or a bar unescorted.) If a woman does not like any of the single men she knows, then, she is unlikely to make a happy match. This is the societal problem Cother has identified, and he carefully offers a potential solution (in as inoffensive terms as he can think of) thus:
“…a Proposal whereby a Lady may, without Reserve, without Danger to her Reputation, without Fear of Insult or Contempt, without the Assistance of a Confident, without Offense to the most Consummate Modesty, without Offence to the Laws of God or Man, without incurring the least Censure from others, nay, without the least Cause for censuring herself, without making herself known even to the very Person with whom she shall converse, unless by her own Choice; without being confined on any Pretence whatever one Moment longer than she likes; hold Conversation, and be in Company, with a Gentleman for two Hours, on the Terms of serious, and honourable Interview, in order to satisfy her Judgment, whether such Person, with whom she shall so converse, be worth her farther Notice; and be of such Fortune, Disposition, or Person, as she should chuse to make her an Husband” (Cother 3-4).
In other words, he is proposing a system that will ensure discretion and privacy as well as personal safety to the participants, and an assurance that nothing the least inappropriate will occur.

In his Articles (23 in all) Cother explains in length how this service will operate within all standards of safety and propriety. Essentially all interested persons will pay a small fee to register for the service, which will then arrange for interviews between men and women in a respectable house, with a Guard present. There are Articles that get down to the nuts and bolts of the service, such as how much both parties must pay for the guard. But there are also articles that deal specifically with how the safety of the parties will be ensured. Article XVIII requires that, “That the Gentleman, on such Interview, either come without, or leave his Sword with the Person on Guard” (55). And before that Article XVII states, “That the Lady, on such Interview, shall be at Liberty to come in a Veil” (53), in order to conceal her identity if she so chooses. The Guard is always on standby, ready to intervene at the woman’s call. Cother is specifically dealing with the issue of women and consent here. From before Cother’s time and stretching into the present, women who report rape are doubted at every turn. “In sexual relations more generally, a woman’s refusal of consent…is systematically invalidated…enforced submission continues to be interpreted as consent” (Pateman 12-13). This makes women afraid to speak up about assault for fear they won’t be believed. So Cother provides a witness and a bodyguard in one. What he is really trying to do is level the playing field on the woman’s behalf. In a patriarchal society that will systematically undervalue and dismiss her, his service needs to consciously operate outside of those norms, and provide a space where her words – and her consent – are as meaningful as a man’s.

Cother is very conscious that at the time, this is the kind of idea that will get laughed down the second it is suggested. It is simply a ludicrous idea in the eighteenth century to have an office that will arrange “interviews” between two people to see if they are interested in marrying one another. One of the reasons this would have been so strange is that it would have necessitated women to be uncharacteristically proactive in actually going out to a public office and registering for this service. It assumes that women can afford to register, and will be allowed to by whomever is their guardian (unless they are widows). It takes away the romance of a courtship and turns it into a selective intellectual endeavor – on both sides. Pateman talks about seventeenth and eighteenth century women as “…inhabitants of a private sphere that is part of civil society and yet is separated from the public world…Women have never been completely excluded from participation in the institutions of the public world – but women have been incorporated into public life in a different manner from men” (Pateman 4). In describing the political position of women in society, Pateman points out that women are always assumed to be naturally subordinate to men. Cother’s system, while going out of its way to ensure women’s protection and privacy, in every other way treats men and women the same. Both pay the same, the same age limit (no younger than 21 unless a widow or widower) applies to both, and they are expected to follow the same guidelines for respectable behavior. Women are perhaps more vulnerable than men in this situation, but they are not assumed to be less competent or worthy of participation.

Pateman also addresses the problem of women and consent: “…whether, given the patriarchal construction of what it means to be men and women and the present structure of relations between the sexes, ‘consent’ can have any genuine meaning in public or private life. Unless refusal of consent is possible, talk of consent is pointless” (12). The Guard, which shall be present at interviews, hypothetically eliminates any danger to the woman. The Guard takes the man’s weapons; he is ready to intervene at the slightest sign of trouble; he ensures that the woman has a ride home, and will even accompany her if she wishes. The Guard is meant to eliminate any power imbalance between the man and woman. He ensures that the woman has the right to say no if she wishes; she may leave early if she chooses, without fear of being followed. Consent, in other words, will happen whether one party likes it or not. Especially in a time when strangers do not interact, period, the ability to ensure a respectful and unthreatening atmosphere would have been crucial. In the scenario Cother is presenting, man and woman are on equal footing for once – more so than if they had been courting in the traditional way.

In a time when the idea of public and private spheres is being solidified, Cother is presenting a system that inherently rejects the idea that women must remain in their place (so to speak). Cother purports that marriage is the ultimate state of bliss, and it is natural to him that both men and women should seek it out. (Furthermore, this system cannot actually work if only men are allowed to apply.) Pateman theorizes that just because women have been historically overlooked and subjugated, does not mean that they have ever been irrelevant or incompetent. Cother’s service functions on the same basis: not only do women deserve an opportunity to meet potential husbands, but they are fully capable of having the same independence as a man in making this choice for themselves.

Works Cited
Cother, E. “A Serious Proposal For Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage. Address’d to the Unmarried, of both Sexes.” London, 1750. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Michigan State University Libraries. 11 Apr. 2016

Pateman, Carole. “Introduction.” Introduction. The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, and Political Theory. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1989. 1-15. Print.

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage

A Digital Humanities Project: Analytical Response

Working on a Digital Humanities Project, I was involved in the editing of “A serious proposal for promoting lawful and honourable marriage. Address’d to the unmarried, of both sexes” by E. Cother. This text is a proposal for a marriage agency which was published in London in 1750 (for W. Owen, at Homer’s Head, near Temple-Bar). The fact that such a document exists is the first thing which surprised me. Thinking about a “marriage agency,” I could only apply this concept to the 20th and 21st centuries, and not to the 18th. However, attempts to promote a marriage among those who could not succeed on their own for one reason or another, existed much earlier.

The author claims that there are many unmarried women and men in London, and he introduces the scheme he invented to help them to succeed in marriage. This scheme consists of 23 rules. Before the description of these rules, an introduction is provided. Here, the author explains his goals, describes his potential reader and provides a successful story of one couple. This “story of success” in marriage is provided to encourage a potential reader and to show that unusual ways of behaving sometimes work well, and there is no reason to be ashamed of one’s desire to find a match.

The very first thing in which I am interested is the title, especially the word “serious” included in it.  For what reason did the author use it? To highlight the importance of the issue? Or to provide an opposition with the romance? To show that there is no room for joke or fancy? I think, in this case the word works in both directions. The author complains that the desire to be married is a subject for jokes among the public, and this is a big obstacle on one’s way to happiness. In this sense, he acts as a rebel destroying popular stereotypes raised by romance and hypocritical rules. He reveals common patterns of behavior which a woman uses to seem uninterested in marriage while she is desperately in need of a good husband: “And why all these?  but to conform herself to those rigid, and absurd Rules of Mock-modesty, and Sham-reserve; the Laws of which, were introduced by Romance, and Gallantry.” As the current example shows, the author is highly aware of the constructed nature of many concepts which is interesting according to topics of gender and sexuality. One can also see that concepts of “romance” and “gallantry” are described in a strongly negative way, and they are in opposition to natural and reasonable behavior. At the same time, while destroying stereotypes, or at least trying to show that there is no shame in a desire to be married, E. Cother is also concerned about honour and reputation. These are the main concepts, and they organize a framework for his proposal. This intersects with the notion from English Masculinities by Hitchcock and Cohen which is also concerned with the concepts of honour and reputation as key cultural and behavioral ideas in the 18th century. Therefore, what is especially interesting for me is an opportunity to see how these concepts “work” in real life, and to compare this vision with theoretical framework I already had. The author of the Proposal tries to be “in the middle” of this problematic field of honour and reputation issues. On one hand, he reveals the hypocrisy of many ideas and shows their uselessness. On the other hand, he does not recommend “a bold or confident Behavior” (4). The importance of the Honour, Modesty and Reputation is doubtless. This makes the narrative problematic: in trying to help single persons to find each other, one should not violate established norms.

First, the author addresses himself to ladies, then to gentlemen. It is implied, therefore, that for women the issue is more important and difficult, especially applying to modern norms and rules of behavior. Women are more vulnerable in their reputation and conduct. This intersects again with the notion from English Masculinities: “female sexual reputation was both of supreme importance and extreme fragility” (Hitchcock and Cohen 15). Talking about possible obstacles on the way to marriage, Cother mentions women’s necessity to be introduced into the world, and this corresponds to Evelina by F. Burney. Therefore, the work with this particular text is a great opportunity to compare fictional and non-fictional sources of eighteenth century literature, and to see that to some extent the lines between them are blurred. For example, in his document, E. Cother provides a story of a happy marriage, and it can be easily read both as fiction and as a “real story.”

The appearance of masculinity in the text is also interesting. Among possible obstacles for men on their way to marriage there are “manner of life, dispositions of mind, turn of temper.” Defining a gentleman, the author shows that this type of person has fewer obstacles to get married, which corresponds to the idea of class (more opportunities and choice), and also to the idea of a libertine. As authors of the English Masculinities mentioned, “men’s reputations became if anything less connected to their sexual behavior, while those of women became more fully dependent on just that aspect of their lives” (Hitchcock and Cohen 16).

 “A serious proposal for promoting lawful and honourable marriage” also demonstrates that “boundaries were more ambiguous and shifting than a simple and static demarcation between public (male) and private (female) spaces would allow” (Hitchcock and Cohen 20). It is clear when one sees how the author offers to make appointments between single persons.

Finally, the thing which amazed me most of all is the non-fictional nature of the text, which reveals “real” society and its concerns. However, being non-fictional in its nature, the Proposal uses fictional methods to become attractive to the reader. Moreover, the author mentions Shakespeare as an authority in questions of sense and natural behavior. He does not provide Shakespeare’s name in talking about his heroines, which means that he is oriented to the well-read, educated public that is able to recognize the author through his characters. This also seemed interesting during the work.

To sum up, I would like to say that work with the Digital Project became a logical completion for me in the sense that I have already read some fiction from the 18th century as well as contemporary critical materials concerning gender and sexuality. Having found a marriage agency proposal, I could compare the “real,” historical narrative with both fictional and critical ones and draw some conclusions about gender in the 18th century.

 

Works Cited

Hitchcock, Tim; Cohen, Michèle  English masculinities, 1660-1800. London : Longman,1999.

Cother, E. “A Serious Proposal For Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage. Address’d to the Unmarried, of both Sexes.” London, 1750. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Michigan State University Libraries. 11 Apr. 2016.

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage

Digital Humanities Project Blog Post

Caroline McCarthy

Our group transcribed a conduct book called A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honorable Marriage, released in 1750 by Dr. E. Cother. Throughout the book, Cother gives advice to young men and women on how to properly behave in a relationship, and ultimately proposes that both sexes can have the opportunity to learn these behaviors through an established marriage agency. Cother claims that there are a lot of eligible young men and women in society, but most of them are unequipped and undereducated in socializing with the opposite sex. Women, in particular, “have not been so properly introduced into the world as they ought” (32) as the result of a restricting education and sheltered upbringing.

Cother goes on to explain how the marriage agency would ideally operate: there would be two separate “Offices” that educated the members of each sex how to properly court a woman or how to behave when being courted by a gentleman. Women need to maintain their “delicacy” (71) throughout the courtship and hide away any anxieties, doubts or frustrations they have. Men, on the other hand, need to respect their woman’s boundaries whether they’re on a date or in “correspondence” with letters and such. Towards the end, Cother also explains that women and men cannot let their guards down, so to speak, even after they are legally married. Specifically, men should still have enough respect for their wives to know not to “intrude himself into matters in which he never had the least concern” such as “stalking into his Lady’s dressing room without due notice given” (73).

The biggest surprise our group had from this was that it was actually written as a book, instead of just an outline of a set of rules. There are specific rules made by Cother, but they are defined and explained in a narrative-like structure. It seemed to be more of a “how-to” book; Cother was trying to help “prevent and hinder…rudeness and indecency of any kind” (49) when eighteenth century young adults try to find a marriage partner. Furthermore, we thought that these rules would be more about the type of person one should or shouldn’t marry, based on the social ethics, laws and principles of that time period. So, we expected rules with age limits, prohibition from interracial marriage, homosexual marriage, and/or marriage between people of two different classes or backgrounds. Yet, none of these social taboos were even mentioned, much less enforced, by Cother. Overall, Cother’s tone was very matter-of-fact as opposed to personal; she was rehashing the social rules that she’s been taught in order to help the younger generation, not necessarily to push her own beliefs or agenda.

Reading this piece gave us a lot of insight into gender roles and expectations of affluent young adults of the time period. Women were not only expected to be pure, well mannered and adjusted to the idea that their main role in life was as a wife and mother, but they had to constantly act a certain way in public if they wanted to be socially accepted (not just by eligible bachelors, but everyone they and their families were connected with). They had to play the part of the “delicate” china doll that remained emotionally neutral and passive when out in public. Men had to be the ‘perfect gentleman’ at all times.

We also learned that finding a significant other and being in a relationship at that time was a long, calculated process for both sexes, and it could easily take a downward spiral if one of them doesn’t follow the rules. Cother explains very specific rules regarding courtship, including one about when/how to end a date. Specifically, if a woman on a date wishes to go home, then she should instruct “the person on Guard” to call for a coach and then notify the man of where she is going. In turn, the man must respect this and “be obliged not to depart till such Lady’s Coach, or Chair, has been gone from the Door with her for at least Five minutes” (49). If the man wants to leave the date first, then he must leave on his own and let the “Guard attend to Lady” (49). Other rules similar to this one imply that a courtship choreographed by the marriage agency is short, formal and planned out, and any romance, leisure or intimacy is forbidden.

If either sex did not properly play the role that society expects of them, Cother explains that the ramifications would have a domino effect on everyone involved. For instance, if a woman threw a tantrum at a party, then it would affect her reputation as a woman worthy of marriage. If she had a suitor at that time, then he’d be compelled to break it off before his reputation was damaged. Additionally, her parents’ reputations would be damaged, and they will cease to be invited to important social events or have access to the most exclusive clubs from then on. Apparently, reputation is everything to high society people, and even one mistake can destroy an otherwise perfect reputation. According to Cother, that is why a marriage agency is required; so women and men can better understand and become accustomed to the rules of being an unmarried adult. As far as Cother is concerned, the only way a young adult can truly understand and appreciate the social structure behind relationships is by learning them from marriage ‘experts’ (as opposed to learning them as they continue to date different people) and, as a result, find a suitable marriage partner in a short time.

WORKS CITED

Cother, E.  “A serious proposal for promoting lawful and honourable marriage. Address’d to the unmarried, of both sexes.” Published by W. Owen, at Homer’s Head, near Temple-Bar, 1750.

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage

Digital Humanities Project Analytical Response Draft

The document that my group and I edited, A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honorable Marriage, felt very much aligned with one of the prevailing themes in the novels we read: romance and marriage. Just as the works we were assigned to read could be interpreted as guidebooks for how women and one man, were meant to act in civic engagements during that period in history, our chosen document, concentrated on both how to court and react to courtship for both sexes. Specifically, I wished to inspect the interactions and power dynamics that I saw emerge in the document as a prominent theme and compare it to the ideas of more recent female writers on the plight of women during the 18th Century.

The document was split into various sections, each specifying a different part towards the path of marriage. It was astonishing and a bit reassuring the first time I went through Cother’s piece to find that men and women of status, with all the resources, connections, and wealth at their disposal had the exact same problems of dating that still plague both genders today, such as how long a courtship should be, where to rendezvous with one another, and what to talk about.

At the start of the work, Cother opens up by explaining how the subject of marriage arises in an individual’s mind and how, if one truly intends it as the next stage of their life, two individuals are to introduce themselves to each other, advising to “immediately declare the open and honest Sentiments of their Hearts, and make no Scruple of coming directly to the Point,” (p. 5) However, after this instruction on presentation, Dr. Cother opens up with a first-person account on how he accompanied an associate of his to a friend’s dinner. This friend recounted how he and his newly wedded wife came to know one another and marry and how it awakened that same desire for companionship in Cother, who, bases his document on this short but influential event.

This was another aspect of the document that had me taken aback, that Dr. Cother structured each section of his advice in an intimate fashion, as if he were talking to the reader directly during a time where formality was considered to be the norm.

Given that it was written in 1750, I would have thought that Cother would be much more distant and authoritative in providing counsel to his readers. Though it was unexpected, it was a welcome surprise and I felt as though it was to accommodate the reader as a way of reassuring him/her that these problems are natural and that not everyone knows the ins and outs of dating. It was a method to draw readers in and allow them to relate and go through the extensive requirements needed for a courtship to go smoothly.

The next part was the most uncomfortable to come to terms with, as Cother concentrated on explaining how both a man and woman would have to enroll with their genders’ respective registries for interviewing one another for two hours, with the lady evaluating the man’s “fortune, disposition, or person, as she should choose to make her a husband,” (p. 3). While listing off the various requirements and actions that these registries provided, option XXIV caught my eye as it stated that “any parent, uncle, or brother shall be at liberty to register a daughter, niece, or sister, if above the age of twenty-one years, provided the private direction for future correspondence be to themselves,” (p. 53).

I found that this was essentially forcing any female capable of making her own decisions into marrying whatever individual her patriarchs wished for. It was a simple yet effective method of controlling what kind of man she would be exposed to. I was immediately reminded of a part introduced in Armstrong’s Desire and Domestic Fiction piece, where she touched upon how women were represented as both “economic and political objects,” rather than tools to be used in their own, private households. (15.)

In her piece, Armstrong argued that the work of the Edgeworths’, which is outlined in the work, Practical Education from 1801, showed an antithesis to these registries, which I saw as a form of indoctrination for arranged marriages. In their program, the Edgeworths’ prioritized the “schoolroom and parlor over the church and courts in regulating all human behavior.” (14) Given the span of a 50-year difference between the two works, it showed how much political power and the different kinds of identities that could be obtained by such a small change of where the “subservient” members of society were sent in such a small amount of time.

Given the amount of time and effort that Cother put into describing the requirements and tasks of these registries, I was taken aback when he introduced something completely out of the blue: his own objections and rules on how these registries should be used. Up until this point, the document had largely been an informal talk to describe the various cogs of dating and in my opinion, had fit women into the bubble brilliantly described by Carole Pateman. In her article, The Disorder of Women, Pateman notes that women’s “sexual embodiment prevents them enjoying the same political standing as men.” (4.) This goes along well with how men at these one of these facilities treated woman: not as political equals, but as a means to an end in a their own schemes. However, Cother was now describing what he thought was okay to do to a woman and what wasn’t.

In this objection he came up with what I took as his own version of a woman’s virtue that I’d gotten so used to hearing from our readings: a woman’s delicacy. Cother explained that this delicacy made any lady “free from all matrimonial engagements,” and allowed her to marry only when she herself had “no-objections to.” (66) Reading this for the first time, I wondered why everything I’d read from section XXIV was being backtracked, but once I had reread both the section and his new protests, I realized that he wasn’t contradicting himself, but expanding on his idea of courtship.

Though he makes the registries the main topic of his discussion during the early part of his article, he never advocated his support of these registries, but only gave a detailed overview of how they operated. Once I recognized this idea, I came to circle back to his intimate language in the document, and remembered that as a male author writing about this topic, more of his readers would be men rather than women. This idea came to make sense with me, as more men would have been educated than women during this time, and would have been more likely to read through the entire document to hear his support for free-minded women. Cother is appealing to the nature of men during this time: listing the possibilities and then the potential wrongdoings that these possibilities pose of attempting to subjugate a woman through these registries.

A later point that Cother’s made supported my thinking, where he appeared to take pride in how English women specifically, had acquired a much more “liberal and free a way of thinking, talking, and acting, in point of religious matters than was ever so much as dreamt of by their simple Grand-Mothers,” (p. 69). Here, he settles on the idea that women have become more liberal and free-willed in their entire persons than women two generations back. While it is a bit sexist on his part, believing that women didn’t deserve this right a couple generations back, it shows his growth as man believing that women deserve to choose for themselves who they spend the rest of their life with, since their delicacy triumphs everything else, a point that Ms. Pateman also agrees on, as she adamantly states in the same article that “consent is at least, if not much more, important in private as in public life.” (12.) Both these authors, although centuries apart, agree that consent/delicacy must be the key way in which relationships move forward in society. Both individuals in a couple must be comfortable engaging in activities of romance rather one overruling the other, and it is satisfying to see this agreement between the two writers, since it is something I agree with as well.

Works Cited:

Armstrong, N. (February 1990) “Introduction: The Politics of Domesticating Culture, Then and Now.” Desire and Domestic Fiction. (pp. 3-27), Published by Oxford University Press.

Pateman, C. (1989) “The Disorder of Women: Democracy, Feminism, & Political Theory. (pp. 2-16), Published by Stanford University Press, Stanford California.

Cother, E. (1750) “A serious proposal for promoting lawful and honourable marriage. Address’d to the unmarried, of both sexes.” (pp. 75) Published by W. Owen, at Homer’s Head, near Temple-Bar