Mary Wollstonecraft's Life
The Troubled Life of Mary Wollstonecraft, 18th Century Feminist
A brief look at the life of Mary Wollstonecraft, English Feminist pioneer and writer, social campaigner and mother of Mary Shelley.
In the second half of the 18th century, a girl was born who would still be remembered today as an early feminist and writer,although she is sometimes better known as the mother of another famous author.
Born on April 27th 1759 in London, Mary was largely self-educated. She resented the opportunities for learning that were available to her brother but not to her, purely because of gender. In 1784 Mary and her sister Eliza opened a school as a method of educating others and supporting themselves.
Mary started attending the “Dissenting Chapel” of Richard Price, so called because his sermons rejected the concepts of original sin and eternal punishment. Mary, always one to question received ideas became friends with Price and others in his set.
Price gave a sermon supporting the French Revolution in 1789, which was publicly attacked by Edmund Burke. Mary went to the defence of her friend in her pamphlet A Vindication on the Rights of Man in which she also discussed broader issues of the inequalities of her contemporary society.
In 1792, Mary printed her most famous work, A Vindication on the Rights of Woman. This publication included attacks on educational institutions for the way they maintained the gender status quo. In this pamphlet she described marriage as “legalised prostitution”. Although not married herself, she had witnessed domestic violence in her parents’ relationship. Again, Mary looked at broader issues, campaigning for votes for women, as well as the abolition in hierarchies with the church and military.
Her personal life was turbulent. In 1793 she moved to France with an American writer, Gilbert Imlay and bore his daughter, Fanny. The relationship fell apart, and after much travel in Europe, Mary returned to London. In 1797 she married William Godwin, whose child she was carrying. The baby was born a healthy girl, also named Mary. Due to complications following the birth however, Mary Wollstonecraft died ten days after her daughter was born. The daughter grew up to be Mary Shelley, who in 1844 published Frankenstein.
Mary Wollstonecraft was a pioneer in an age of female repression. She worked for publisher Joseph Johnson, and translated for publication, as well as writing reviews, a children’s book, and novels including Mary: The Wrongs of Woman. This novel continues Wollstonecraft’s themes of inequality in society and the unfair treatment of women.
It is hard to assess the value of the contribution of one person in the long history of women’s struggle for equality, but there is inspiration to be found in a woman who fought the conventions of her day, to give a public voice to her beliefs.
Sources:
The Feminist Companion to Literature in English, ed. Blain, Clements, Grundy (Yale University Press, 1990)
