Was Jane Austen a liberal feminist?
Some literary critics seem to think so. There’s a substantial body of scholarly literature linking Austen with her contemporary Mary Wollstonecraft. Scholars like Mary Poovey and Miriam Ascarelli portray both Austen and Wollstonecraft as subverting traditional notions of virtue and marriage. In their attempt to fit these women into contemporary categories, such scholars disregard or downplay Austen and Wollstonecraft’s strong commitment to family duties.
It does seem likely that Austen was exposed to Wollstonecraft, at least by reputation. Her family had ties to one of Wollstonecraft’s benefactors, and she read at least one novel that was heavily influenced by Wollstonecraft, featuring the language of “equal rights.” Yet Austen is not known to have actively participated in anything that could be termed proto-feminism. Her fiction certainly betrays an interest in female education and a vision of marriage as an equal meeting of minds, but she simply was not the radical some recent critics make her out to be.
In large part, the problem stems from a misunderstanding of Mary Wollstonecraft. We can only begin to understand Austen’s concerns about gender, motherhood, and virtue once we properly understand Wollstonecraft. In both cases, there is a real danger of our contemporary sensibilities clouding our judgment.
Whether one is a proponent or a critic of feminism, it is both irresponsible and inaccurate to conflate the views of Austen and Wollstonecraft with our own opinions about the modern feminist movement. Rather, we must take them on their own terms, allowing our current conception of womanhood to be influenced and enriched by their work.
Rights, Responsibilities, and Rationality
Both Austen and Wollstonecraft focused on our responsibilities to others, especially those who are dependent on us. In their view, the first step in enabling women to carry out their duties of support and education within the family is to stop thinking about female education merely as the accumulation of “accomplishments.”
“Accomplishments,” in the late eighteenth-century, meant anything from dancing to embroidery, singing, and painting. While there is nothing wrong with mastering any of these skills, both Austen and Wollstonecraft found issue with the idea that they should come at the expense of learning history, philosophy, and classics. Wollstonecraft argued strongly that women should not be treated as merely ornamental creatures but as rational beings who bear moral responsibility for their actions and characters. “Women have been allowed to remain in ignorance, and slavish dependence many, many years,” she wrote, “and vanity makes them value accomplishments more than virtues.’
Already we can start thinking of some parallels with Austen. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, Mr. Bingley appreciatively remarks on how ladies always seem to have so many accomplishments. His sister, Caroline Bingley, is not so easily satisfied. She asserts that
A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions.
Caroline’s definition of female accomplishment does not differ from the one generally accepted in British society at the time. But Mr. Darcy’s does. In his view, to be truly “accomplished,” a woman, like her male counterpart, “must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.”
Likewise, Wollstonecraft argues that “Women cannot be confined to merely domestic pursuits.” Rather, their minds must “take a wider range.” This is not solely to serve the happiness of individual women, or the good of society, but also to ensure that they better “fulfil family duties.” Wollstonecraft believes that if a woman “be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge” and virtue. She cannot “co-operate” unless “freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty.” As both Darcy and Wollstonecraft understood, education not only allows a woman to actualize her potential for her own sake. It also makes her a better companion for her husband and a better educator for her children.
Wollstonecraft believes that the “freedom” granted by rights is necessary to develop the “reason” needed for women to carry out their duties well. Similarly, in Austen’s Persuasion, Mrs. Croft reminds her brother, Captain Wentworth, that women are not merely “fine ladies” but rather “rational creatures.” It is perhaps not a coincidence that Mrs. Croft and Admiral Croft’s marriage is one of the happiest in Austen’s novels.
In general, for Wollstonecraft, “rights” are conditional upon moral obligations and a life of service to others. Although she uses the language of “equal rights,” she does so in a radically different way than we do today. For Wollstonecraft very clearly states that she is “contending for the rights of women” for the express purpose that women should be better able to “co-operate” in carrying out the duties proper to their roles as spouses, parents, and citizens. By contrast, today “rights” are understood to belong to radically autonomous individuals, unmoored from their roles in society.
Virtue and Parenthood, Piety and Practice
Both Austen and Wollstonecraft believed that it is only through consistent instruction, and consistent practice of the virtues, that people grow into moral beings. There is an interesting dynamic in Wollstonecraft’s writing between parenthood and the attainment of virtue. She seems to argue not only that virtuous parents make virtuous children, but also that the experience of parenthood itself makes the parent more virtuous, through relational, daily practice.
Wollstonecraft also sees the unique relationship between mother and child as an important argument for women’s education.
As the care of children in their infancy is one of the grand duties annexed to the female character by nature, this duty would afford many forcible arguments for strengthening the female understanding, if it were properly considered. The formation of the mind must be begun very early, and the temper, in particular, requires the most judicious attention.
As we can see, the argument is twofold: the promotion of female education would increase both women’s happiness but also their ability, in turn, to educate their children. If “affection” informs women’s duties to their children without “reason,” women cannot be effective parents: “To be a good mother, a woman must have sense, and that independence of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers.” This quality of meekness is a problem for Wollstonecraft, because she (like Edith Stein after her) believed that an intellectual dependence on men prevented women from realising their much more significant dependence on God: “cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God.”
Wollstonecraft is equally adamant that fatherhood should be a defining experience in the life of a man, writing that “the character of… a husband, a father, forms the citizen imperceptibly, by producing a sober manliness of thought, and orderly behaviour.” The moral growth of a father and that of the child are thus mutually beneficial and mutually dependent.
Once again, Austen’s novels display parallels with Wollstonecraft’s thought. For instance, in Mansfield Park, Sir Thomas Bertram only begins to grow in virtue as a father once he understands the moral failings of his children. After his daughter commits adultery, he realises that “principle, active principle, had been wanting,” concluding that his daughters
had never been properly taught to govern their inclinations and tempers by that sense of duty which alone can suffice. They had been instructed theoretically in their religion, but never required to bring it into daily practice. To be distinguished for elegance and accomplishments… could have had no useful influence that way, no moral effect on the mind. He had meant them to be good, but his cares had been directed to the understanding and manners, not the disposition.
Much in these lines could have been taken from Wollstonecraft herself: the suspicion of mere “accomplishment,” the focus on duty and forming one’s disposition to conform to it, and the crucial Aristotelian tenet that virtue must be achieved through practice. If Sir Thomas’ daughters had learnt to be rational as well accomplished, they would not have seen their “duty” as something abstract. Rather, their sentiments and characters would have, through practice, been formed by their duties.
Austen and Wollstonecraft both believed that religious education should consist of more than mere theoretical instruction. We know that Austen’s prayer habits were regular, and three prayers which she wrote have survived. In the preface to her Female Reader, Wollstonecraft stresses the importance of fixing “devotional habits in a young mind.” The repetition of a prayer, for instance, though it may be perceived as “mechanical devotion,” is helpful in instilling a sense of the “duty.” Over time, “piety may imperceptibly warm the heart that was at first unmoved by the task.” For Wollstonecraft, then, daily practice can foster genuine feelings of piety. It is no coincidence that, in Mansfield Park, Fanny Price and her cousin Edmund are the only characters who laments that chapel services at the estate have been discontinued. The Bertram sisters show no such regret.
Blurring the Boundaries Between Public and Private
In debates about what it means to be a woman, both Austen and Wollstonecraft sought the virtuous middle ground. They did not see womanhood as being realized exclusively in the service of the family, nor in the pursuit of some elusive ideal of independence. Wollstonecraft is clear:
The being who discharges the duties of its station, is independent; and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother.
Again, we hear the echoes of Mrs. Croft’s plea that women should be seen as “rational creatures” rather than “fine ladies.” But while the idea that women should be more than “fine ladies” is a familiar one, the claim that independence consists in the discharging of duty is now so alien to so many. We should reflect on this definition of independence, and let it shape the ways in which we approach questions of womanhood and parenthood in our daily lives.
Both Austen and Wollstonecraft prioritized rights for the sake of practising virtue. Recognizing the importance of our embodiment as men and women, both thinkers were deeply concerned with marriage and parenthood as opportunities for moral growth. In their view, men cannot be good husbands and fathers, and women cannot be good wives and mothers, if they are not well-educated and well-formed in the practice of their religious beliefs. And, in turn, mothers and fathers cannot be good citizens if they are not virtuously fulfilling the duties of their domestic roles.
This blurring of the strict divisions between public and private spheres is a fascinating feature of Austen’s and Wollstonecraft’s thought. In a post-industrial era in which boundaries between work and family life are being renegotiated, it’s a vision that deserves more consideration. By beginning with an understanding of rights as tied to duties towards those dependent on us, we can better not only understand Wollstonecraft’s relationship to Austen, but also the insights both thinkers have for us today.
Although it can be challenging, the flexibility provided by remote work can go a long way in bringing work back into the household, allowing parents to seek virtue through both childcare and a professional vocation. Childcare teaches all kinds of virtues that a successful career can’t, at least not quite in the same way: patience, resilience, and achieving a balance between affection and discipline, just to name a few. In our deeply atomized society, allowing children to be part of our work environment can have a beneficial effect that ripples outward, far beyond our own families. Yet Wollstonecraft’s and Austen’s focus on parents’ active participation in their children’s education reminds us that, even if our children are educated well in schools, true education in virtue must begin in the home.
Perhaps most importantly, the blending of public and private spheres offers a daily reminder that our professional or academic accomplishments cannot constitute the entirety of our personal sense of fulfilment. Rather, it is through the fulfilment of our obligations to one another that we gain true independence.
