Revolutionary Nuptials
Mary Wollstonecraft's Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman
"I am afraid to run any risk, when I know so well, that women have always the worst of it, when law is to decide."

Mary Wollstonecraft

Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novel Maria, or The Wrongs of Woman provides an opportunity for the philosopher and novelist to fictionalize the points she made in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1791). Wollstonecraft had published her Vindication of the Rights of Men in 1790 as a direct response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, which he published just a few months earlier. She also addresses Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, published in 1757 (Macdonald 35). In 1791, Wollstonecraft published her longer work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in which she addresses the issue of education for women, the flaws within the institution of marriage, and the injustice of excluding women from politics.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft's most famous work, focuses on the flawed educational system for women. She constructs the argument in a unique way. Although Wollstonecraft, like Godwin, considers herself "anti-matrimonial," her Vindication argues that better education for women will create better wives, mothers and daughters. Therefore, although she doesn't wholly agree with the institution of marriage, Wollstenecraft explains how to improve its wives.

The novel invokes the gothic genre, an emerging and popular novel form of the time. The novel opens with by contrasting its realistic horros with a foreboding gothic description: "abodes of horror have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absord the wondering mind. But formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavoring to recall her scattered thoughts?" (7). The novel uses gothic conventions to show the potential for husbands and men in general to become tyrants. The setting invokes "the gothic convention of the insane asylum/prison from which one could conceivably escape is given life through the figurative and more inescapable prisons of marriage and property law and the corruptions of mind and heart" (Falco 40). Additionally, the tradition of the genre leads an innocent and virtuous protagonist through horrifying adventures while being chased and antagonized by one evil character. On the surface of Wollstonecraft's novel, Maria fulfills the role of the virtuous innocent while her husband, tracking her from place to place, acts as the villain.

Maria conveys the essential elements of Wollstonecraft's work. Wollstonecraft gives readers insight into Maria's education, class, and marital circumstances, all portraying marriage as slavery and prostitution. Maria marries Mr. Venables but soon realizes he lacks the virtue she once thought he possessed. He leads a life of gambling and boozing, squandering his wife's fortune and using her to acquire more money from her uncle. Eventually, he acquires so much debt he offers his wife up to his debtor, through a letter which reads "every woman had her price, and, with gross indecency, hinted, that he should be glad to have the duty of a husband taken off his hands" (94). Wollstonecraft considers marriage a legalized form of prostitution as a man has full control over every aspect of their wife's life. Here, rather than using Maria for his own sexual needs, Venables hands her over in order to relieve some of his debt. After this incident, Maria leaves her husband but continues to be pursued by her still greedy husband.

Finally, Venables succeeds in capturing Maria and sends her to a mental institution where a majority of the novel takes place. Here, the protagonist is left with virtually nothing to do but read borrowed novels of a man she eventually falls in love with and attempts to marry. Maria struggles in this environment and "the want of occupation became even more painful than the actual pressure or apprehension of sorrow; and the confinement that froze her into a nook of existence, with an unvaried prospect before her, the most insupportable of evils. The lamp of life seemed to be spending itself to chase the vapours of a dungeon which no art could dissipate" (11). This confinement works on several levels. First, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the importance of a good education for women. Maria is more educated and more sensible than most women which is why she leaves in the first place. Second, Wollstonecraft considers marriage as another way for men to assert their power over others. Maria notes, "men who are inferior to their fellow men, are always most anxious to establish their superiority over women" (79). This power also forces women to be at the whim of men and essentially become slaves to them. Early in the novel, the narrator asks, "Was not the world a vast prison, and women born slaves?" (11).

Wollstonecraft also uses the novel to discuss the viability of divorce. In both Maria and her Vindications, readers see that Wollstonecraft believes women should be granted to right to seek a divorce. In the novel, Maria falls in love with Mr. Danford but needs the consent of her husband to be released from the marriage. Venables, although he put his wife into an asylum, still wants her as a wife so he can retain possession of all her material belongings.

Oddly, Wollstonecraft still hesitates to reject marriage completely. As evidenced by her biography, she was married twice herself. First to American Gilbert Imlay who claimed her as his wife to protect her while in France and pregnant with her first daughter. Later she married William Godwin who also rejects the institution of marriage. Her writings also indicate that Wollstonecraft still considered marriage a sacred institution even if it was also inequitable. Maria even acknowledges "a husband and wife were, God knows, just as one" (105), hinting at a divine element of marriage. Rather than hoping to completely abolish marriage, Wollstonecraft wanted nuptials to be reimagined in order to make the arrangement equal for men and women, and she rejected the idea that women must marry in order to remain virtuous and respected.

Relevant Bibliography Entries

Mary Wollstonecraft's Timeline

  • 1759 Mary Wollstonecraft is born April 27 in London.
  • 1787 Wollstonecraft publishes Thoughts on the Education of Daughters.
  • 1788 Wollstonecraft publishes her first novel, Mary: A Fiction; a children's book, Original Stories from Real Life; and Of the Importance of Religious Opinions, a translation from the French of Jacques Necker.
  • 1789 Wollstonecraft publishes an anthology, The Female Reader.
  • 1790 Wollstonecraft publishes Young Grandison, her translation from the Dutch of Maria Geertruida van de Werken de Cambon. She also writes and publishes A Vindication of the Rights os Men in response to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France.
  • 1793 Wollstonecraft meets Gilbert Imlay, who registers her at the United States embassy as his wife. Wollstonecraft or Imlay publishes The Emigrants, which is attributed to Imlay though possibly written by Wollstonecraft.
  • 1794 Wollstonecraft gives birth to Fanny, her first daughter. She publishes An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution.
  • 1795 Mary Wollstonecraft returns to London and attempts suicide for the first time in May and for the second time in October.
  • 1796 Mary Wollstonecraft publishes Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark and begins an affair with William Godwin.
  • 1797 Wollstonecraft marries Godwin and gives birth to their daughter Mary. Wollstonecraft dies shortly after giving birth due to medical mistakes.
  • 1798 Godwin publishes Posthumous Works of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

<-- Previous Page | Next Page -->