Things to Consider:

• Historical Context, esp. French Revolution
• Mirrors, Lamps, and Scales
• Education and Conduct Literature
• Religion
• Slavery and Other Conditions of Marginalization (See Essay )

• Explain:  "If she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice" (281).

• Explain:  "The more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty—comprehending it—for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principles as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner" (282).
• Explain:  "They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent" (282).
• Which "personal accomplishments" were women expected to pursue?
• What is "leisure-class female education" (282n)?

• Why does Wollstonecraft's text focus on middle-class women (see 285n)?

• Explain:  "Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience" (291).
• Explain Wollstonecraft's take on the Genesis story of creation.

• What is a "revolution in female manners" (298)?

• Explain:  "Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man" (303).

• Why does Wollstonecraft write an introductory letter to Talleyrand ?

• What are the consequences of the "false system of education" that Wollstonecraft perceives in her society?
• Explain:  "The minds of woman are enfeebled by false refinement" (284).
• What are "manly virtues" (284)?

• Explain:  "Elegance is inferior to virtue" (285).
• Explain:  "I shall be employed about things, not words!" (285).

• What, according to Wollstonecraft, is "the only way women can rise in the world" (286)?
• How is cunning "the natural opponent of strength" (286)?

• Explain:  "From the exercise of reason, knowledge and virtue naturally flow" (287).
• Explain:  "The more equality there is established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in society" (287).
• What is a subaltern?

• Explain: "The character of every man is, in some degree, formed by his profession" (288).
• Explain:  "The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no barriers to break its force" (288).

• Explain:  "It is a farce to call any being virtuous whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason" (290).

• What problem does Wollstonecraft have with Gregory's advice to his daughters?
• Explain:  "The woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind will, by managing her family and practising various virtues, become the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband" (293).
• Explain:  "Friendship or indifference inevitably succeeds love" (293).

• Explain:  "An unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and . . . the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother" (294).

• Explain:  "For though moralists have agreed that the tenor of life seems to prove that man is prepared by various circumstances for a future state, they constantly concur in advising women only to provide for the present" (295).
• What is "spaniel-like affection" (295)?
• According to Wollstonecraft, do "passive indolent women make the best wives?" (295).  Explain.

• Explain:  "Teach them, in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a sex to morals" (296).
• Explain:  "The conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the operations of its reason" (296).

• Explain:  "Girls and boys, in short, would play harmlessly together, if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long before nature makes any difference" (297).
• Explain:  "Dependence of body naturally produces dependence of mind" (297).

• What, according to Wollstonecraft, happens to a typical woman who becomes widowed at a young age?

• Why would a mother consider her daughters to be rivals?
• Why would such behavior be considered proper by Rousseau?

• How would a "reasonable" woman respond to being widowed?

• Why does Wollstonecraft have respect for Catherine Macaulay?
• Explain:  "The corrupting intercourse that wealth, idleness, and folly, produce between the sexes is more universally injurious to morality than all the other vices of mankind collectively considered" (301).

• Explain:  "From the tyranny of man, I firmly believe, the greater number of female follies proceed" (302).
• Explain:  "A similar attention to preserve their reputation was conspicuous in the dissenting and female world, and was produced by a similar cause" (302).  Why is Wollstonecraft making this comparison?

• Why does her stepmother speak so poorly of her?
• Explain:  "I was an egg dropped on the sand" (306).

• Why doesn't Jemima abort her baby at this point?
• Why is her mistress angry at Jemima and not her husband at this point?

• Explain the treatment of Jemima by the "watchmen" of the town.
• What benefits does Jemima receive from reading?

• Explain:  "Misery was the consequence of indolence" (311).

• Why would a man with half of Jemima's industry  be able to procure "a decent livelihood" (312)?
• Is Jemima justified in encouraging her lover to put his pregnant (ex-?)lover out of doors?  Explain.

• What conclusions does Maria draw after hearing Jemima's story?

• What does "ruined" mean?

• Why does Jemima's stepmother bring her "home" to live?

• Why is Jemima apprenticed to a shopkeeper?

• Explain:  "[I] proved by my conduct, that I deserved the epithets, with which they loaded me at moments when distrust ought to cease" (308).

• What are the consequences of her employer's sudden death?

• What is a workhouse?

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