Burney's Existence Of Woman As A Subordinate?

Woman as a Subordinate

Throughout history, women have been treated as a subordinate. There have been different standards for education, at women’s disadvantage, different social standards, different responsibilities for men and women, different expectations, different standards for “goodness”, different criteria for virtuousness. We see examples of these injustices throughout the text of Evelina as well as in the excerpts in the course packet.

Eighteenth-century English jurist Sir William Blackstone declared in a magisterial passage, “By marriage, the very being or legal existence of a woman is suspended, or at least it is incorporated or consolidated into that of the husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover she performs everything,

This is why Burney’s dedication and her note to the critics is written as almost an apology for even attempting to write a novel being an inferior, or subordinate female. Not to mention the added pressure that the novel, as a work of writing, had a low status in the eighteenth century as opposed to poetry. Sarah M. Grimke concurs that women have been poorly educated and in subjects of domestic importance with “little pains taken to cultivate their minds” (p.44) and therefore believe that “marriage is a kind of preferment; and that to be able to keep their husband’s house, and render his situation comfortable, is the end of their being.” Women had not been taught to think more of themselves than a mere housewife as their ultimate achievement in

Virtue has nothing to do with a woman, and with respect to man, virtue is the warlike quality that was prized by ancient human civilization. A woman may have all the nobler qualities of her sex—be a pattern of generosity, inspiration, religious emotionality, and if she is not “virtuous”, or having never been approached inappropriately in a sexual manner she will never be considered virtuous. In essence, a woman may have a shining resume of wonderful disposition and wonderful character, but if her sexual reputation is tarnished, she will not be respected in the same way than if she were “pure”. (Woodhull and Claflin p. 146) Reputation-p. 164 “nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman: it is, at once, the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things.” (Mr. Villars) Woodhull and Claflin believe that “women must vindicate their right to an absolute freedom in their own conduct” (p