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.