Mary Wollstoncraft; J. Powell

THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY Mary Wollstonecraft Equal Rights for Women by Jim Powell I n Western Europe during the late eigh teenth century, single women had little protection under the law, and married women lost their legal identity. Women couldn't retain a lawyer, sign a contract, inherit property, vote, or have rights over their children. As Oxford law professor William Black stone noted in his influential Commentaries on the Laws of England (1758): "The hus band and wife are one person in law; that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection and cover, she performs every thing." Then along came passionate, bold Mary Wollstonecraft who caused a sensation by writing A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). She declared that both women and men were human beings en dowed with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She called for women to become educated. She insisted women should be free to enter business, pursue profes~onal careers, and vote if they wished. "I speak of the improvement and Mr. Powell is editor ofLaissez Faire Books and a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. He has writtenforThe New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, American Heritage, and more than three dozen other publications. Copyright © 1996 by Jim Powell.

emancipation of the whole sex," she de clared. "Let woman share the rights, and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emanci pated .... " Wollstonecraft inspired people because she spoke from the heart. Although she was reasonably well-read, she drew more from her own tumultuous experience. "There is certainly an originaldefect in my mind," she confessed, "for the cruelest experience will not eradicate the foolish tendency I have to cherish, and expect to meet with, romantic tenderness." She dared do what no other woman had done, namely pursue a career as a full-time professional writer on serious subjects with out an aristocratic sponsor. "I am then going to be the first of a new genus," she reflected. It was a harsh struggle, because women were traditionally cherished for their domestic service, not their minds. Wollstonecraft developed her skills on mea ger earnings. She dressed plainly. She sel dom ate meat. When she had wine, it was in a teacup, because she couldn't afford a wine glass.

Contemporaries noted Wollstonecraft' s provocative presence-thin, medium height, brown hair, haunting brown eyes, and a soft voice. "Mary was, without be ing a dazzling beauty, . . . of a charming grace," recalled a German admirer. "Her face, so full of expression, presented a style 225 226 THE FREEMAN • APRIL 1996 of beauty beyond that of merely regular features. There was enchantment in her glance, her voice, and her movements." Mary Wollstonecraft was born April 27, 1759, in London. She was the second child and eldest daughter of Elizabeth Dixon, who hailed from Ballyshannon, Ireland. Mary's father, Edward John Wollstonecraft, was a handkerchief weaver. He decided to be come a gentleman farmer after he got an inheritance from his father, a master weaver and residential real estate developer, but farming was a bust. The family moved seven times in ten years as their finances deterio rated. Edward drank heavily, and Mary often had to protect her mother from his violent outbursts. She had rocky relations with her siblings.

Mary's formal schooling was limited, but one of her friends in Hoxton, outside Lon don, had a respectable library, and Mary spent considerable timeexploringit. Through these friends, she met Fanny Blood, two years older and skilled at sewing, drawing, watercolors, and the piano. She inspired Mary to take initiative cultivating her mind. Spurred by familyfinancialproblems, Mary resolved to somehowmake her own way. She pursued the usual opportunities open to smart but poor young women. At 19, she got a job as live-in helper for a wealthy widow who proved to be a difficult taskmaster. Young Adulthood Three years later, in 1781,Mary tried and failed to establish a school at Islington, North London. Then Mary, Fanny, and Mary's sisters, Eliza and Everina, started a school nearby at Newington Green. After initial success, that, too, failed. She then worked as a governess for an Irish family and saw firsthand the idleness of landed aristocrats. These discouraging experiences were compounded by the death of Fanny Blood from tuberculosis. After Mary's mother died in 1782, she-not her oldest brother-assumed primary responsibility for taking care of her volatile father.

Meanwhile,through her Newington school experience, Wollstonecraft met many local Dissenters whose religious beliefs put them outside the tax-supported Anglican Church. Among these Dissenters was minister and moral philosopher Richard Price, who was in touch with Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Marquis de Condorcet, and other radical thinkers of the day. Wollstonecraft also met scientist Joseph Priestley, school teacher John Hewlett, and Sarah Burgh, widow of radical author James Burgh. Al though Wollstonecraft retained her faith in the Anglican Church, she stood out as a maverick and became good friends with these people. Dissenters promoted reform of Britain's cozy political system. The House of Lords consisted of aristocrats who inherited their positions. The House of Commons was chosen by the very few males who were enfranchised-just 15,000, about one-half percent of adult males-determined the out come of an election. The Test and Corpo ration Acts disenfranchised religious Dis senters. Moreover, no town had gained the right to representation since 1678, which meant that dynamos of the Industrial Rev olution like Birmingham and Manchester were excluded.

The Influence of Joseph Johnson Hewlett encouraged Wollstonecraft to write a pamphlet on education and submit it to Joseph Johnson, the radical publisher and bookseller with a shop at St. Paul's Church yard. He was known as a visionary entre preneur who backed a number of unknowns including the poet-printmaker William Blake. Johnson published works by Joseph Priestley and poets William Cowper and William Wordsworth, too. He distributed materials for Unitarians. Hewlett's suggestion turned out to be a lifeline because, as Wollstonecraft biogra pher Claire Tomalin explained, "Mary was homeless again, without ajob or a reference; she had nothing to live on, and she was in debt to several people. She had no marriage prospects. She was 28, with a face that looked as though it had settled permanently MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT-EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN 227 into lines of severity and depression around the fierce eyes. . . her most remarkable trait was still that she had refused to learn the techniques whereby women in her situation usually attempted to make life tolerable for themselves: flattery, docility, resignation to the will of man, or God, or their social superiors, or all three."

Johnson told Wollstonecraft that she had talent and could succeed if she worked hard. He published her pamphlet in 1786 as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters; with Reflections on Female Conduct, in the More Important Duties of Life. Sales were negligible, but the work launched Woll stonecraft's literary career. She sent her author's fee to the impoverished Blood family and redoubled her efforts. "I must exert my understanding to procure an inde pendence and render myself useful," she wrote. "To make the task easier, I ought to store my mind with knowledge-The seed time is passing away." By 1788, Johnson offered her steady work. She translated books from French and German into English. She served as an assistant editor and writer for his new jour nal, The Analytical Review. She contributed to it until her death, perhaps as many as 200 articles on fiction, education, sermons, trav elogues, and children's books.

Johnson was a good man. He helped Wollstonecraft find lodgings. He advanced her money when needed. He dealt with her creditors. He helped her cope with her father's chaotic situation. He calmed her bouts of depression. "You are my only friend," she confided, "the only person I am intimate with-I never had a father, or a brother-you have been both to me.... " Wollstonecraft met more radicals who visited Johnson, including William Blake, Swiss painter Henry Fuseli, and Johnson's publishing partner, Thomas Christie. On one occasion, she met philosopher William Godwin and Thomas Paine, the Englishman who helped inspire the American Revolu tion by writing Common Sense. Wollstone craft dominated the conversation. "I heard her very frequently, " Godwin recalled, "when I wished to hear Paine." The French Revolution The outbreak of the French Revolution in July 1789 triggered explosive controversy.

In November, Richard Price gave a talk before the Society for Commemorating the Glorious Revolution of 1688, defending the right of French people to rebel and suggest ing that English people should be able to choose their rulersan obvious challenge to the hereditary monarchy. This alarmed Ed mund Burke, a Member of Parliament pre viously known for having defended the American Revolution. Burke wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France (November 1790), a rhetorically brilliant attack on natural rights and a defense of monarchy and aristocracy. Burke's ideas as well as his swipes at Price made Wollstonecraft indignant. Draw ingon the ideas of John Locke and Price, she rushed into print with A Vindication of the Rights of Men, among the earliest of some 30 replies to Burke. Although this polemic was repetitious and disorganized, and Woll stonecraft overdid her attacks on Burke as vain, unprincipled, and insensitive-she had an impact. She faulted Burke for being blind to poverty: "Misery, to reach your heart, I perceived, must have its cap and bells. . . ." She denounced injustices of the British constitution which evolved during the "dark days of ignorance, when the minds of men were shackled by the grossest prejudices and most immoral superstition. "

She singled out the aristocratic practice of passing family wealth to the eldest son: "the only security of property that nature autho rizes and reason sanctions is, the right a man has to enjoy the acquisitions which his talents and industry have acquired; and to bequeath them to whom he chooses .... " She lashed out at arbitrary government power: "Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English liber ty. . . . But softly-it is only the property of the rich that is secure; the man who lives by the sweat of his brow has no asylum from oppression; the strong man may enter when was the castle of the poor sacred? and the base informer steal him from the 228 THE FREEMAN • APRIL 1996 family that depend on his industry for sub sistence .... I cannot avoid expressing my surprise that when you recommended our form of government as a model, you did not caution the French against the arbitrary custom of pressing men for the sea service. "

Wollstonecraft's work, and everyone else's for that matter, was later dwarfed by Thomas Paine's far more powerful reply to Burke-The Rights ofMan-but she estab lished herself as an author to reckon with. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman She had generally supposed that when revolutionaries spoke of "man, " they were using shorthand for all humanity. Then on September 10, 1791, Talleyrand, former Bishop of Autun, advocated government schools which would end at eighth grade for girls but continue on for boys. This made clear to Wollstonecraft that despite all the talk about equal rights, the French Revolu tion wasn't intended to help women much. She began planning her most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. She wrote for more than three months and was finished January 3, 1792.Johnson published it in three volumes. She despised the government class. "Taxes on the very necessaries of life," she wrote, "enable an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade which costs them so dear."

She specifically cited laws that "make an absurd unit ofa man and his wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as responsible, she is reduced to a mere cipher. . . how can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or virtuous who is not free?" Wollstonecraft issued an early call for women's suffrage: "I really think that women ought to have representatives, in stead of being arbitrarily governed without having any direct share allowed them in the deliberations of government. " Wollstonecraft attacked those like collectivist Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wanted to keep women down. He had written that "The education of the women should al ways be relative to the men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young, and take care of us when grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy."

Wollstonecraft believed education could be the salvation of women: "the exercise of their understanding is necessary, there is no other foundation for independence of char acter; I mean explicitly to say that they must bow only to the authority of reason, instead of being the modest slaves of opinion." She insisted women should be taught serious subjects like reading, writing, arithmetic, botany, natural history, and moral philoso phy. She recommended vigorous physical exercise to help stimulate the mind. To be sure, she had a naIve faith that the same governments which restricted women could inexplicably be trusted to run schools uplifting women. Twentieth-century gov ernment schools have been catastrophes for women as well as men, graduating large numbers at high cost without the most fundamental skills. Wollstonecraft called for eliminating ob stacles to the advancement of women. "Lib erty is the mother of virtue," she asserted, "and if women be, by their very constitu tion, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws of nature."

She envisioned a future when women could pursue virtually any career opportu nities: "Though I consider that women in the common walks of life are called to fulfill the duties of wives and mothers, by religion and reason, I cannot help lamenting that women of a superior cast have not a road open by which they can pursue more exten sive plans of usefulness and indepen dence.... " Finally: "How many women thus waste life away the prey of discontent, who might have practiced as physicians, MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT-EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN 229 regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility. " With A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft emerged in a class by herself. She went beyond her contempo rary Catherine Macaulay who had written passionately about educating women. Woll stonecraft was opposed by "Bluestock ings" like Hannah More, Elizabeth Mon tagu, and Hester Chapone who had fared well by making the most of the subordinate position of women. A succession of women novelists-Fanny Burney, Clara Reeve, Charlotte Smith, and Elizabeth Inchbald, for instance-had portrayed women who achieved heroic moral stature, but they didn't always celebrate women with brains.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman sold out within a year, and Johnson issued a second edition. An American edition and translations into French and German fol lowed. Wollstonecraft crossed the English Chan nel so she could see the French Revolution for herself. She was welcomed by expatriots such as the American patriot Joel Barlow, English poet Helen Maria Williams, and Thomas Paine. She sided with liberal Gi rondists who, including Marquis de Con dorcet, favored a constitutionally limited government and equal rights for women. But she was horrified at how fast the total itarian Jacobins seized power and launched the Reign of Terror. Wollstonecraft dreamed that someday men and women would nurture each other as equals. "The man who can be contented to live with a pretty, useful companion, without a mind, has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for more refined enjoy ments," she wrote, "he has never felt the calm satisfaction that refreshes the parched heart like the silent dew of heaven-of being beloved by one who could understand him."

Alas, she had an agonizing time applying these ideas to her own life. She became infatuated with the eccentric genius Henry Fuseli, but he was married and brushed her off after extended flirtation. While still in France, she fell in love with an American adventurer named Gilbert Imlay, who was always looking for a scheme to strike it rich. They had a daughter, Fanny, but he lost interest in both of them and walked out. Wollstonecraft attempted suicide twice. M ter the second incident, when she was being dragged out of the Thames, she renewed her resolve: "it appears to me impossible that I shall cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sor row, should only be organized dust. Surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable-and life is more than a dream. " While recovering from despair over Im lay, she took a three-month break with Fanny in Scandinavia and produced one of her most poignant works, Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Nor way and Denmark. The letters were ad dressed to the unnamed American father of her child. They provide a travelogue laced with commentary on politics, philosophy, and her personal life. Mter witnessing the French Terror, she tempered her hopes for social change: "An ardent affection for the human race makes enthusiastic characters eager to produce alterations in laws and governments prematurely. To render them useful and permanent, they must be the growth of each particular soil, and the grad ual fruit of the ripening understanding of the nation, matured by time, not forced by an unnatural fermentation." Throughout the book, Wollstonecraft struggled to cope with her grief about Imlay, and she conveyed an immediacy and tenderness that touches the heart. "If ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book," remarked William Godwin.

Relationship with WilliamGodwin Wollstonecraft decided to pursue her ac quaintance with Godwin, calling on him April 14, 1796.He had a large head, deep-set eyes, and a thin voice. "He seems to have had some charm which his enemies could not detect or his friends define, but which 230 THE FREEMAN • APRIL 1996 had a real influence on those who attained his close friendship," reported Godwin bi ographer George Woodcock. Like Wollstonecraft, he had started a school, but his ideas were too radical, and the effort failed. His literary career had begun with a dull political biography, a book of sermons and some potboiler novels. Then London publisher George Robinson offered to pay Godwin enough of an advance that he could work out his philosophy. The result was Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793),describing his vision of a harmonious society without laws or war. The book established him as England's foremost rad ical thinker.

Godwin courageously spoke out against the British government's campaign to sup press the Corresponding Societies which were debating clubs interested in revolu tionary ideas. Godwin wrote public letters supporting defendants. He charged that the government's campaign was illegal since none of the defendants had committed rev olutionary acts of violence. These writings won widespread sympathy for the defen dants, and further prosecution was aban doned. At the time Wollstonecraft called, God win was a 42-year-old bachelor courting Amelia Alderson, a doctor's daughter. But he was intrigued with Wollstonecraft, de spite his initial impression that she talked too much. He invited her to a dinner party the following week. Included were James Mackintosh and Dr. Samuel Parr, both of whom had written rebuttals to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Mter Alderson rejected Godwin, he be came more responsive to Wollstonecraft, and her passion overwhelmed him. "It was friendship melting into love," he recalled.

But Wollstonecraft was haunted by fear of another betrayal. Godwin reassured her that he longed for a relationship between equals. Her passion surged again. "It is a sublime tranquility," she wrote him, "I have felt it in your arms." By December, she was pregnant. Both Wollstonecraft and Godwin had criticized marriage as a vehicle for exploitation, but they tied the knot on March 29, 1797. She rejoiced that she had found true love at last. She went into labor during the early morning of Wednesday, August 30, 1797. She was attended by one Mrs. Blenkinsop, an experienced midwife. Mter 11 o'clock that night, a daughter was born-Mary, who grew up to be Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. For a while, it appeared things were fine, but three hours later, Mrs. Blenkinsop notified Godwin that the pla centa stillhadn't come out of the womb. The longer the placenta remained, the greater the risk of infection. Godwin called a Dr.

Poignand who succeeded in removing much of the placenta. Wollstonecraft reported that the procedure was the most excruciat ingly painful experience of her life. That Sunday, she began suffering chills, an ominous sign of infection. Doctors of fered wine to help ease the pain, and tried other measures to stimulate her body to eject the remains of the placenta. Wollstone craft continued to decline. She died Sunday morning, September 10, 1797. Godwin was so overcome that he didn't attend the fu neral, held at St. Pancras church where they had been married just five months before. She was buried in the churchyard. Posthumous In8uence Soon afterwards, ever-loyal publisher J0 seph Johnson issued Godwin's edition of the Posthumous Works of the Author of a Vin dication of the Rights of Woman, together with Godwin's candid memoir about her. Although Godwin believed telling all would boost her reputation, it unleashed a fire storm of controversy, and her unsettled personal life became an easy excuse to belittle her ideas.

But as author Virginia Woolf remarked about Wollstonecraft decades later, "we hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living." American crusaders for equal rights like Margaret Fuller, Lucre tia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were allinspired by A Vindication ofthe Rights of Woman. In recent years, the women's movement MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT-EQUAL RIGHTS FOR WOMEN 231 has become linked with preferential treat ment and hatred of men. Today, happily, more people are rediscovering Mary Woll stonecraft who established the individualist roots of equal rights. She took responsibility for her life. She educated herself. She showed how a woman can succeed with her wits. She urged everyone to achieve his or her human potential. She spoke out for vital economic liberties. She demanded justice. She championed relationships based on mu tual respect and love. D Critica An interdisciplinary journal focusing on the effects of 111arketand state on hUlllan wellbeing.

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(is.'" 0891-381 I) THEFREEMAN IDEASON UBERTY RussellKirk's Economicsof the Permanent Things by John Attarian W hile Russell Kirk (1918-1994) is prop erly recognized for his role in reviving American conservative thought, his rumi nations on economics have received little attention. Yet he gave economics due con sideration, and was a sturdy friend of eco nomic freedom and a foe of statism. More over, because he drew on religion, morality, and a comprehensive view of human nature, Dr. Kirk achieved important insights in political economy that a purely economic approach would have missed. Kirk's starting point was belief in God and a "belief in an order that is more than human,"l which rules both society and in dividuals. A transcendent God implies that eternal truths exist, that "human nature is a constant, and moral truths are perma nent. ,,2 This conviction that certain norms, or enduring moral standards, exist was central to Russell Kirk's world view; upholding them was hislife's work. These "Permanent Things"-norms of courage, duty, justice, integrity, charity, and so on-owe their existence, and authority, to a higher power than social good.