Volume 11, Issue 1 - April, 1793

   

Volume 11, Issue 1 - April, 1793

     This issue of the Ladies Magazine provides conflicting ideas of how women should act in order to attract a husband, and then to be a 'good' wife. The editors chose articles, poems, and stories that both teach women there is more to being a wife than domestic duties and the dangers of premarital sex. An early feminist attitude about women's roles existing outside the home are overshadow by the pressure put on women to fear their sexuality.

     The article "On the Art of Being Agreeable" examines what it means for people to be courteous, specifically women, without compromising their values. The author details that acting properly toward others does not mean acting in a manner to appease their own insecurities. For example, parents teaching their children to only speak when addressed, has more to do with the parents need to over talk. The article also relates this to the social pressure for women to be domestic, and encourages them to be more involved in their community and the state. The author uses the fact that the United States had a a male-only army as an example of the male-dominated government. The article states: 

     "but as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters - I would persuade them, that to read

      intelligibly, and to write accurately is not so unpardonably a crime as many of them

     seem to think...that the being able to make a pie or a pudding, is no useless, or 

     unseemly qualification of a good wife, in a middling nation" (216-217). 

The author takes this idea of "being agreeable" and self-preservation over politeness to encourage women that there is more for them than domestic life. The piece ends by bringing marriage into conversation, writing that "I will venture to promise that a citizen's daughter, would not have one admirer the less, for appearing in a gown of her own working, or going to church or elsewhere, in the produce of the manufacture of her country" (217). This quotation works to assure women that men will not look down on them for taking a greater role in the nation's structures, in this case industrialism. Women were constantly told that they needed to behave a certain way to catch a man's attention, and this article works to subvert that objective. 

     On the opposite side of early feminist ideas about domestic roles is the piece "Friendly Hints; or a Letter to a beloved young Lady," which warns against the dangers of premarital sex. The author, named as Montford, is writing to Elvira, whom their relationship to is never stated. They teach her to be wary of seduction because it will "behold youth, innocence, and beauty, removed from parental care, to be the dupe of a designing villain" (227). This works to enforce the religious ideology behind marriage, and encourages her to be fearful of her own sexuality and men. The article wants this fear to come not from losing her virginity, but the unhappiness that comes afterward. The author writes: 

     "And above all, the favor of Him, whose goodness and bounty gives every blessing

      around us! May you, Elvira, possess all these; and moreover, may thy gentle breast

      never find that unhappiness which cruelty can inflict on honest love, deceived, and 

      misinterpreted; not by you, but by those that have violated all pretensions to 

      sincerity, by dissimulation and injustice!" (228). 

This quotation works to guilt Elvira with Christian references into associating premarital sex with misery, and to fear the men who will manipulate her into it. Purity was an important aspect of marriage for women, because they would be seen as ruined if they were not a virgin for their husband. The editors' chose to include this letter in the issue shows that they were promoting the negative views of premarital sex, contributing to the societal standards and pressure for women to be 'pure' before marriage. 

     This issue of the Ladies Magazine strikes differently than other issues because of its differing ideas on women's role in marriage. While it presents a somewhat feminist idea that women's roles exist outside of the domestic sphere and promotes their involvement in the community, it also presents sexuality in a fearful light. These views, while they are not disputing because one looks at women's roles in the household and state, and the other looks at premarital sex, provide insight into the complex social customs women had to navigate in relation to courtship and marriage.

- Emily Fournier