Woman’s Place

Abstract

The period 1690–1750 was one in which the place of women in the moral, intellectual, and social life of the nation was discussed and debated as never before. This intensified interest in the place of women had many sources and significances. It was partly an effect of the spectacular developments in physical science and philosophical epistemology in the early Enlightenment. It was closely related to the often turbulent religious controversies of this period within and outside the Anglican communion. These were in turn part of the broader political and cultural response to the Glorious Revolution of 1688–69, and the political and civil rights and (limited) religious toleration enshrined in the revolution settlement. As well as the response to national political events, there were also important continental influences, notably those of French Cartesian philosophy and the culture of the French aristocratic salons. Greater engagement in philosophical, theological, political, and scientific writings with the question of women took place in the context of a rapid expansion of print culture. This brought increased circulation of new genres such as periodicals, novels, and semifictionalized memoirs and autobiographies, many of which drew attention to women as analytical and imaginative subjects, and, above all, as writers themselves.