Since class on Friday, I've been thinking a lot about our continued discussion of women writers. Specifically, we talked about the specifics of Scott's feminist project. I will list a few of those to recap:
-not equality between men and women, but reforming women's education. In other words, still separate, but better than it has been thus far.
-women's economic prospects (women had almost no agency pre-marriage)
-a role model is necessary
-critique of male shallowness in choosing a wife
-what to do about "fallen" woman w/o support (loss of virtue always stays with a woman)
-problem of marriage alone as source of economic stability and emotional happiness
On the other hand, there was a notable contradiction: Scott's novel plays lip service to marriage yet the novel shows example after example of women choosing not to marry.
This contradiction also goes hand in hand with the novel's support of reliance of female friendship as the alternative to sole reliance on a man for stability and emotional support.
With these points in mind, I was thumbing through the very insightful and interesting book Dr. Hague loaned me over the weekend. I know its not on our reading list for the semester, but I found it really helped me to understand some of Scott's feminists projects, so I thought I would share it here, as well.
The book is entitled, "The Blue Stocking Circle: Women, Friendship, and the Life of the Mind in 18th Century England,"by Sylvia Harcstark Myers. We've talked about the blue stockings in class on several different occasions, so I won't go into too much detail, but one thing in particular that Myers said about the group went along with our many discussions about concerns of women writers during this time period: "the efforts of the blue stockings to to gain for themselves and others the 'female right to literature' succeeded at least in creating an image of the educated woman as a respectable member of society" (12). This seems like such a no brainer--for educated women be recognized as someone worthy of respect, but I hadn't even thought of a feminist project as simple as this before I read it. Yet, its not so simple, either. At least, not during this time. It makes sense to me, then, why Scott's novel doesn't seem concerned with frying "bigger" fish like tackling the problem of equality between men and women, and why, instead, the novel focusses continually on education going hand in hand with morality. The mantra, "educated women are virtuous women" seems to be chanted throughout "Millennium Hall." Being aware that educated women were fighting just to be recognized as respectable members of society during the 18th century (and beyond), helped me to understand the emphasis in Scott's novel on education being closely linked to virtue--because if a woman isn't recognized as virtuous, she can't possibly be looked upon as respectable.
Scott's emphasis on female relationships and marriage were brought to mind while reading Myers, as well: "The prospective blue stockings took their friendships seriously and made them a means of personal development. As they grew into young women, of course, they also faced the issue of marriage" (85). Myers also cites an example of the realities of marriage during this time: "Anne Donnellan, herself unmarried, assured Elizabeth Robinson when she was on the verge of marrying, marriage 'is the settlement in the world we should aim at, and the only way we females have of making ourselves of use to Society and raising ourselves in this world...'"(85). Myers explains that this assessment reveals "Donnellan's awareness of the narrow opportunities available to the women she knew. They could make themselves useful by becoming wives and mothers; they could raise themselves by marrying men who who had more money or higher status than they" (85).
Myers' assessment echoes our discussion of Scott's novel concerning the reliance of women upon each other for emotional support. Because the reality, as Donnellan tells her friend, is that marriage is a useful institution in terms of having a decent place in society. In other words, marriage serves a purpose that is void or nearly void of emotional connection. This explains why women in the blue stockings as well as the women in Scott's novel hold their friendships with other women in such high regard. Donnellan's phrase "raising ourselves" seems pervasive throughout Scott's novel as well.
