The Matrimonial Trap

Eighteenth-Century Women Writers Redefine Marriage

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Feminist Criticism, Women Authors, Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Gender Studies, Women&
Cover of the book The Matrimonial Trap by Laura E. Thomason, Bucknell University Press
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Author: Laura E. Thomason ISBN: 9781611485271
Publisher: Bucknell University Press Publication: December 5, 2013
Imprint: Bucknell University Press Language: English
Author: Laura E. Thomason
ISBN: 9781611485271
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Publication: December 5, 2013
Imprint: Bucknell University Press
Language: English

Mary Delany’s phrase “the matrimonial trap” illuminates the apprehension with which genteel women of the eighteenth century viewed marriage. These women were generally required to marry in order to secure their futures, yet hindered from freely choosing a husband. They faced marriage anxiously because they lacked the power either to avoid it or to define it for themselves. For some women, the written word became a means by which to exercise the power that they otherwise lacked. Through their writing, they made the inevitable acceptable while registering their dissatisfaction with their circumstances. Rhetoric, exercised both in public and in private, allowed these women to define their identities as individuals and as wives, to lay out and test the boundaries of more egalitarian spousal relationships, and to criticize the traditional marriage system as their culture had defined it.

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Mary Delany’s phrase “the matrimonial trap” illuminates the apprehension with which genteel women of the eighteenth century viewed marriage. These women were generally required to marry in order to secure their futures, yet hindered from freely choosing a husband. They faced marriage anxiously because they lacked the power either to avoid it or to define it for themselves. For some women, the written word became a means by which to exercise the power that they otherwise lacked. Through their writing, they made the inevitable acceptable while registering their dissatisfaction with their circumstances. Rhetoric, exercised both in public and in private, allowed these women to define their identities as individuals and as wives, to lay out and test the boundaries of more egalitarian spousal relationships, and to criticize the traditional marriage system as their culture had defined it.

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