Love, Marriage and the Wrongs of Woman

Abstract

In the winter of 1795–6 Wollstonecraft faced social ostracism as a single woman with a child. She faced the possibility of public vilification, as reaction against the French Revolution was being orchestrated into an attack on radical wings of the professional cultural revolution in Britain, including advocates of the rights of women. She also faced the immediate task of recommencing her career. In January 1796 she wrote to the Irish revolutionary Archibald Hamilton Rowan, then in the United States: ‘I live, but for my child — for I am weary of myself.’ But she had resumed her professional career: ‘now I am writing for independence’ (Letters, p. 328). In a postscript she noted that the political reaction in England might make things more difficult for her — ‘The state of public affairs here are not in a posture to assuage private sorrow.’