Christina Dorothea Leporin (Erxleben), Sophia (Gutermann) von La Roche, and Angelika Kauffmann: Background and Dilemmas of Independence

Abstract

Christina Dorothea Leporin (Erxleben), Sophia (Gutermann) von La Roche, and Angelika Kauffmann: Background and Dilemmas of Independence PETER PETSCHAUER Independence was not a word men and women liked or tended to apply with as much fervor in the eighteenth-century German setting as we do in ours.1 All too many persons at best smiled about women one might today consider emotionally and mentally mature enough to achieve personal and financial nondependence. The vast majority of the population lauded those women who were prepared for and accepted the profession of housemother or housewife which was thought to have been specifically designed by nature for them. The debate for most women did not revolve around being dependent or nondependent, about marrying or not marrying, about having a voice in marriage or not; by the end of the century most who left a record felt comfortable that some progress had been made through the in­ troduction of choice in the selection of marriage partners. Indeed, the ready transition of the majority of women from the ideal of house­ mother to housewife later alerts us that most women were delighted to have gained at least a say in the choice of whom to marry and, potentially, a closer relationship with their partner.2 In addition, few men or women had the slightest idea that the family was changing from a unit of production to a unit of consumption and that the role 127 128 / PETSCHAUER of women and the upbringing of children was about to head into uncharted directions.3 For the purpose of this essay, I assume the meaning of independent to be similar to that of self-reliant; that is, the independent woman was not part of the majority. She was an individual who could, as a maximum, perceive marriage itself as a choice and, as a minimum, see it not as her only fulfillment. Although I will not discuss indepen­ dence within marriage, I hope to make clear that a trend in this direc­ tion was one reason, if not the principal one, that women could be more free in other areas of their lives as well. That a certain secular success accompanied such independence makes Angelika Kauffmann , Sophie von La Roche, and Christina Dorothea Leporin all the more fascinating examples for discussion.4 But let us not mistake the self-reliance of the eighteenth century with feminist ideals of the twentieth. Even if these women served occasional later and younger women as examples, they cannot be considered to have been femin­ ists; at most, they cleared the way for feminists of later periods. Pre­ cisely because these three women were exceptions in their isolated independence, future generations of feminist women could look back and perceive them as precursors. How did a woman become independent when almost everyone else in the society, specifically in the circle of family and friends, was geared to dependence? Several key factors overlapped for Leporin, Kauffmann, and La Roche and seem to have had significance for many other women who achieved independence in the eighteenth century. Each of these three was born with sufficient intelligence and drive to take advantage of the opportunities that arose in her environment. Then too, the family into which each was born belonged either to what we today consider the middle classes or the elite. The birth or­ der either placed the individual at the head of a generally small group of siblings or allowed her to become the principal sibling upon whom love and attention was showered. This caring is one of the best indi­ cators that the families had entered a more advanced childrearing mode than the majority of families in the society.5 Probably in con­ junction with this advanced mode, the parents, and this applies more to fathers than mothers, were peculiarly interested in the develop­ ment of a daughter and encouraged the exploration of her talents in every way emotionally, societally, and financially possible. I chose the three women not because they fit this list of criteria from the outset, but because they were sufficiently famous to have re­ mained recognizable as individuals and to point me to them. But upon comparing these to other...