But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband?
Interpretation
This quote criticizes societal expectations placed on women, suggesting they are taught to prioritize marriage above personal ambitions.
Mary Astell highlights the limitations imposed on women by societal norms, indicating that from a young age, they are conditioned to believe their primary goal in life is to marry. This statement challenges the notion that women should aspire only to find a husband, advocating for a broader understanding of women's roles and potential beyond traditional expectations.
In practice
In a speech advocating for women's rights, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for broader aspirations among women.
Hitherto I have courted Truth with a kind of Romantick Passion, in spite of all Difficulties and Discouragements: for knowledge is thought so unnecessary an Accomplishment for a Woman, that few will give themselves the Trouble to assist us in the Attainment of it.
How can a Man respect his Wife when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex?
Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it.
If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any, 'for He does nothing in vain.
Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes not divine, but demonic.
When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
I am malicious because I am miserable
The most difficult idea to reconcile in war is the notion that anything is going to be solved by killing a stranger, or in risking your life for a cause anchored in some distant political arena.
We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.
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