Some Reflections Upon Marriage

Mary Astell (1666–1731) was an English writer and early advocate for women's intellectual equality. First published in 1700, Some Reflections Upon Marriage is a polemical essay prompted by Astell's reading of an account of a notoriously unhappy aristocratic marriage. The work argues that abuses within marriage stem not from the institution itself but from men's poor choices, women's deficient education, and the unchecked authority husbands exercise over wives. This edition includes a lengthy Appendix, originally a preface to an earlier edition, in which Astell extends her argument through scriptural analysis and logical dismantling of the doctrine of natural female inferiority, as well as an appended essay on the history of philosophy by Albert Schwegler.

Astell opens by clarifying that she does not intend a satire against marriage. She cites Cardinal Mazarine, the powerful French minister whose dynastic ambitions collapsed after his death, to illustrate how Providence overrules human schemes that exclude God. Wealth and greatness alone, she argues, do not rescue anyone from oblivion; only virtuous actions achieve lasting worth.

She then laments that a woman of wit and beauty might serve only as a cautionary example of poor education and an unsuitable match. She describes the misery of being forced to marry where one does not love, yoked to an imperious partner whose follies a wife cannot conceal and whose commands she despises even as she obeys them. The opposite scenario fares no better: A woman who marries the man she loves may find his passion cooling into indifference or aversion. Astell insists that a wife must never retaliate, citing the Italian proverb that living well is the best revenge, and declares devotion the only reliable remedy for domestic distress.

Astell warns that seeking consolation in court diversions, gambling, or gallantry proves superficial and harmful. Even if a wife remains technically innocent, any relaxation of her guard on virtue signals a lack of discretion. An ill husband can deprive a wife of comfort, but only the wife herself can accomplish her own ruin. She then critiques men who pursue married women, arguing that such attention is inherently contemptuous. The suitor's goal is to gratify his own passion at the cost of everything the woman holds dear. She dismisses "harmless gallantry" as self-contradictory, since a Christian woman who has vowed her affections to one man cannot distribute them without perjury.

She compares the progression of vice to a military siege, noting that what initially horrifies a person becomes familiar through gradual exposure. She distinguishes between the old-fashioned gallant, a courtier who professed distant veneration for a celebrated beauty, and the modern gallant, who combines cunning and audacity to destroy a woman's reputation. She then defends marriage as a sacred institution ordained by God for mutual comfort and the continuation of the human race, insisting that the blame for unhappy marriages belongs to inordinate passion, rashness, pride, and poor choices.

Astell systematically examines the motives men bring to marriage. Financial calculation dominates: The first question asked is how many acres or how much coin a potential wife will bring. A man who marries solely for fortune must expect only what money can provide. She describes the typical trajectory: indifference proceeding to aversion, the fortune squandered, the wife left begging for alimony from her own estate. The virtuous wife sits quietly, seeks no consolation in admirers, and retires from the world. Affliction rouses her understanding, so that she was paradoxically never truly happy until the world reckoned her miserable. Marrying for beauty or wit is no more rational: Beauty fades, and the sort of wit men prefer in women entertains only as long as the giddy humor that recommended it lasts.

Turning to women's choices, Astell notes that a woman cannot properly be said to choose a husband; all she is allowed is to refuse or accept what is offered. Real civility, she argues, consists not in empty compliments but in making women truly deserving of esteem. She paraphrases the flatterer's hidden meaning: He considers the woman's understanding contemptible and retains the power to reduce her to obscurity at will.

Astell contends that women face a much harder bargain in marriage, since a wife puts herself entirely into her husband's power with little legal recourse. She draws a political analogy: A husband holds sovereign power, while patience and submission are the only comforts left to those who groan under tyranny. She observes that even advocates of political liberty, such as the writer John Milton, would not extend the principle of resisting tyranny to wives. She translates the suitor's courtship into plain terms: He wants a housekeeper, a mother for his children, a flatterer, and a permanent servant who cannot quit his service. In choosing a spouse, Astell prescribes, the soul should be principally considered, along with a virtuous mind and as much equality as possible. She argues that superiors, including husbands, are placed in their station for the good of their subjects, not for their own gratification, and that male contempt for women undermines the very obedience men expect.

Deploying sustained irony, Astell catalogs the supposed greatness of men, their empires, laws, and wars, as justification for women's subjection. She immediately undermines this supposed justification by arguing forcefully for women's education: If male authority is justly established, the more sense a woman has, the more reason she will find to submit to it. Keeping women ignorant is self-defeating, since unassisted natural sense may serve only to punish the man who would not allow it to be useful. She invokes the example of Cato, the Roman statesman who killed himself rather than submit to a conqueror, to argue that an ignorant woman cannot be expected to bear continual outrage with patience. Women are deliberately given deficient educations, she contends, and then blamed for the very faults this deficiency produces.

Astell exposes the strategies by which men pursue women, from artificial modesty to flattery to the gradual displacement of a woman's true friends. She insists that religion and reputation are a woman's surest guards, and that blind obedience is what a rational creature should never pay, since God Himself presents the reasonableness of His laws rather than demanding unreasoning compliance. She concludes the main essay by arguing that a woman who marries purely to do good and submit for life to one who may not deserve it performs a more heroic action than all the famous masculine heroes can boast of, and declares herself more a friend to truth than to any party.

In the Appendix, Astell claims sole authorship and denies stirring up sedition. She dismantles the doctrine of natural female inferiority through logical argument: If every man is by nature superior to every woman, then no queen should ever reign, and the Salic Law, which restricted royal succession to males, should apply universally. She engages in detailed scriptural analysis, examining passages from St. Paul's epistles to demonstrate that instructions about wives' submission address custom and order rather than natural law. She marshals extensive biblical examples of women in authority, including Deborah, who judged Israel by God's appointment; the Shunamite woman, called "a Great Woman" while her husband is scarcely noticed; and Priscilla, who instructed the eloquent Apollos in the Christian faith alongside her husband Aquila. Using sustained irony, Astell argues that men's supposed superiority rests on advantages of education and power rather than nature, since boys receive training and encouragement while girls are restrained and ridiculed. She addresses women directly, observing that most love their chains, but insists that the most excellent of God's creatures, not the most diminished, should set the standard. She concludes with a tribute to the reigning Queen Anne, celebrating her military and political triumphs, and envisions a future in which women discover new worlds and new sciences, ending tyrannous domination over the industry and understandings of half mankind.

The volume closes with an appended essay, "A Note on the History of Philosophy," excerpted from a work by Albert Schwegler. This essay defines philosophy by its method of tracing things to their ultimate grounds, presents the history of philosophy as an organic movement in which successive systems represent advancing stages of human consciousness, and critiques the philosopher Hegel's view that the historical succession of philosophical systems corresponds to the logical succession of categories, arguing that this position destroys human freedom and contingency.