Mary Astell (12 November 1666 – 11 May 1731) was an English proto-feminist author, philosopher, and rhetorician who advocated for equal educational opportunities for women. Astell is primarily remembered as one of England's inaugural advocates for women's rights and some commentators consider her to have been "the first English feminist".Batchelor, Jennie, "Mary Astell". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002. Accessed 6 July 2008.
Astell's works, particularly A Serious Proposal to the Ladies and Some Reflections Upon Marriage, argue for the fundamental intellectual equality between men and women. Her philosophical writings are thought to have influenced subsequent generations of educated women, including the literary group known as the Bluestockings, whose discussions of literature, science, and philosophy often centred on issues related to women's education and equality. Astell, who never married, formed the majority of her close personal relationships with women. During the early 1700s, she withdrew from public life and dedicated herself to planning and managing a charitable school for girls. Astell viewed herself as self-reliant and took pride in advancing her mission to rescue her gender from oppression.
Despite Astell's contribution to the feminist cause, there is a notable tension in the broader body of scholarship when it comes to categorising her as the unequivocal "first English feminist". This discrepancy arises due to Astell's conflicting intellectual commitments. In addition to her belief in women's inherent intellectual potential and her thorough exploration of the perils of oppressive husbands, Mary Astell was a staunch High Tory, a conservative pamphleteer, and an advocate for the doctrine of passive obedience. Even during their initial publication, her strongest political views may have seemed outdated and out of touch with the prevailing beliefs of the time. Furthermore, her emphasis on the importance of religion to female friendship and feminist thought has rankled contemporary critics of her work.
Early life
Few records of Mary Astell's life have survived. As biographer Ruth Perry explains: "As a woman she had little or no business in the world of commerce, politics, or law. She was born, she died; she owned a small house for some years; she kept a bank account; she helped to open a charity school in Chelsea: these facts the public listings can supply."Perry, 22. Although Perry uncovered letters and manuscript fragments, she notes that if Astell had not written to wealthy aristocrats who could afford to pass down entire estates, very little of her life would have survived.Project Vox team. (2024). “Mary Astell.” Project Vox. Duke University Libraries.
Astell was born in Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 November 1666, to Peter and Mary (Errington) Astell.Smith, Mary Astell, 2. Her parents had two other children, William, who died in infancy, and Peter, her younger brother.Sutherland, Eloquence, xi. She was baptised in St John's Church in Newcastle. Her family was upper-middle class and lived in Newcastle throughout her early childhood. Her father was a coal merchant, a clerk within the Hostmen of Newcastle upon Tyne, and a conservative royalist Anglican. Mary's maternal grandfather was also a coal merchant and a member of the Hostmen guild. Due to her family's success in the coal business, her family had grown to achieve relative affluence. At the time of Mary's birth, her family was not part of the gentry. Within a year of Mary's birth her family would be elevated in status after an ancestor's augmentation. Mary received no formal education, although she did receive an informal education from her uncle Ralph Astell; he was a Cambridge graduate and a former clergyman whose alcoholism had prompted his suspension from the Church of England. Although suspended from the Church, he was affiliated with the Cambridge-based philosophical school that based its teachings around philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras. Her father died when she was 12 years old, leaving her without a dowry. With the remainder of the family finances invested in her brother's higher education, Mary and her mother moved to live with Mary's aunt.
After moving in with her aunt, little is known about Mary Astell's life until she was in her early twenties. It is possible that she continued to receive informal education from her uncle, but there is no concrete evidence. It is possible that Mary's lack of a dowry and her family's financial situation may have limited her opportunities for further education or advancement. It is not known whether she had any close friends or was involved in any romantic relationships. It is unclear whether she was involved in any political or social causes during this time, although her later writings suggest an interest in issues related to women's education and equality.
Career
Several years after the death of her aunt in 1684, Astell alone moved to London, possibly because of the political unrest that took place between 1686-1688 in Newcastle. In London, she became acquainted with a circle of literary and influential women, including Lady Mary Chudleigh, Elizabeth Thomas, Judith Drake, Elizabeth Elstob, and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.Sowaal, Alice. "Mary Astell", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2005), 16 December 2006. These women helped develop and publish her work, as did William Sancroft, previously Archbishop of Canterbury. Bound by his previous oath to James II, he refused to swear allegiance to William III after the 1688 Glorious Revolution and became a Nonjuror. He provided financial support for Astell and an introduction to her future publisher. Astell later dedicated a collection of poetry to him.
During this time, it is believed that Astell may have spent some time at a convent in France, where she was exposed to ideas about education and independence for women. She was one of the first English women, following Bathsua Makin, to advocate the idea that women are as rational as men, and just as deserving of education. First published anonymously and signed "By a Lover of her Sex" in 1694, her A Serious Proposal to the Ladies for the Advancement of their True and Greatest Interest presents a plan for an all-female college where women could pursue a life of the mind."Mary Astell". Women in the Literary Marketplace 1800–1900. In 1697, she published part 2 to her A Serious Proposal "Wherein a Method is offered for the Improvement of their Minds".
In 1700, Astell published Some Reflections upon Marriage.Astell, Mary, 1668–1731, Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasioned by the Duke and Dutchess of Mazarine's Case; Which is Also Considered, London: Printed for John Nutt, near Stationers-Hall, 1700. She critiques the philosophical underpinnings of the institution of marriage in 1700s England, warning women of the dangers of a hasty or ill-considered choice. The Duchess of Mazarin is used as an example of "the dangers of an ill Education and unequal Marriage". Astell argues that education will help women to make better matrimonial choices and meet the challenges of the married state: "She has need of a strong Reason, of a truly Christian and well-temper'd Spirit, of all the Assistance the best Education can give her, and ought to have some good assurance of her own Firmness and Vertue, who ventures on such a Trial."
Astell warns that disparity in intelligence, character, and fortune may lead to misery, and recommends that marriage be based on lasting friendship rather than short-lived attraction. A woman should look for "a good Understanding, a Vertuous Mind, and in all other respects let there be as much equality as may be". Astell expanded on this theme in response to critics in the third edition of Some Reflections upon Marriage.
She withdrew from public life in 1709 to become head of a charity school for girls in Chelsea, funded by two wealthy philanthropists, Lady Catherine Jones and Lady Elizabeth Hastings. Backed by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, Astell designed the school curriculum and it is thought to be the first school in England with an all-women board of governors. When she was 60 years old, in 1726, Astell was invited to live with Lady Catherine Jones, with whom she resided until her death in 1731.
Astell died in London a few months after a mastectomy to remove a cancerous right breast. In her last days, she refused to see any of her acquaintances and stayed in a room with her coffin, thinking only of God; she was buried in the churchyard of Chelsea Church in London.
Astell is remembered for her ability to debate with both men and women, and for her groundbreaking methods of negotiating the position of women in society by engaging in philosophical debate (René Descartes was a particular influence) rather than basing her arguments in historical evidence as had been attempted. Descartes's theory of dualism, a separate mind and body, allowed Astell to promote the idea that women, as well as men, had the ability to reason, and subsequently, they should not be treated so poorly; "If all Men are born Free, why are all Women born Slaves?"Astell, Reflections, 107.
Books Mary Astell's works were published anonymously. Her two best-known books, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest (1694) and A Serious Proposal, Part II (1697), outline her plan to establish a new type of institution for women to assist in providing women with both religious and secular education. She suggests extending women's career options beyond mother and nun. She felt that uneducated women were concerned with beauty and vanity, and the lack of education was the root of their inferiority to men, not that they were naturally inferior. Astell wanted all women to have the same opportunity as men to spend eternity in heaven with God, and she believed that for this they needed to be educated and to understand their experiences. The "nunnery" style education she proposed would enable women to live in a protected environment, without the influences of the external patriarchal society.
Her proposal was never adopted because critics said it seemed "too Catholic" for the English. Later her ideas about women were satirised in The Tatler by the writer Jonathan Swift. While the writer Daniel Defoe admired the first part of Astell's proposal, he believed that her recommendations were "impracticable". Patricia Springborg notes that Defoe's own recommendation for an academy for women (as detailed in his An Essay Upon Projects) did not significantly differ from Astell's original proposal. Despite this, she was still an intellectual force among the educated classes of London.
A few years later, Astell published the second part of A Serious Proposal, detailing her own vision of women's education for courtly ladies. She broke away from the contemporary rhetorical style of the period where orators spoke before an audience for learning, and instead she offered a conversational style of teaching "neighbours" the proper way of behaviour. She referred only to the Port-Royal Logic as a source of contemporary influence, although she still relied upon classical rhetorical theories when presenting her original concepts. In her presentation, she offered that rhetoric, as an art, does not require a male education to become a master, and she listed the means by which a woman could acquire the necessary skills from natural logic. This established Astell as a capable female rhetorician.