Women Writers and the Early Modern British Political Tradition

Contents......Page 8
Contributors......Page 10
Preface......Page 14
Introduction Women, intellect, and politics: their intersection in seventeenth-century England......Page 16
Part I Women's political writings, 1400-1690......Page 30
Introduction to Part I......Page 32
1 Christine de Pizan and the origins of peace theory......Page 37
2 Political thought/political action: Margaret Cavendish's Hobbesian dilemma......Page 55
3 Women's public political voice in England:......Page 71
4 Contextualizing Aphra Behn: plays, politics, and party, 1679-1689......Page 90
Part II Women's political and philosophical writings, 1690-1800......Page 110
5 Astell, Masham, and Locke: religion and politics......Page 120
6 The politics of sense and sensibility: Mary Wollstonecraft
and Catharine Macaulay Graham on Edmund Burke's
Reflections on the Revolution in France......Page 141
7 Mary Wollstonecraft on sensibility, women's rights, and patriarchal power......Page 163
8 Emilie du Chatelet: genius, gender, and intellectual authority......Page 183
Part III
The intellectual context and economic
setting for early modern women......Page 206
Introduction to Part III......Page 208
9 Contract and coercion: power and gender in......Page 215
10 The significant sounds of silence: the absence of women
from the political thought of Sir Robert Filmer and John Locke
(or, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?")......Page 235
11 Catharine Macaulay: patriot historian......Page 258
12 Investments, votes, and "bribes": women as shareholders in the chartered national companies......Page 274
Part IV Early modern legal and political prescriptions for women......Page 294
Introduction to Part IV......Page 296
13 The politics of identity and monarchic governance in France: the debate over female exclusion......Page 304
14 The Holy Roman Empire: women and politics beyond liberalism, individual rights, and revolutionary theory......Page 320
15 Women as sextons and electors: King's Bench and precedents for women's citizenship......Page 339
16 "To be some body": married women and The Hardships of the
English Laws......Page 358
Conclusion: women's writing, women's standing: theory and
politics in the early modern period......Page 378
Index......Page 398