A question that we didn't get to in class on Wednesday:
What does Lady Mary Wortley Montagu see as the purpose of her granddaughter's education? Why is she particularly concerned about it? What benefits does she see her granddaughter gaining from it?
Deadline: Friday, 11/13, start of class.
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3 comments:
The two cautions she gives her daughter (to pass onto her own daughter) seem most concerned with her granddaughter maintaining a "happy virgin state" (2713). She wants her to be educated enough to recognize when men are trying to woo her with cheap, stolen lines - "Many a young damsel has been ruined by a fine copy of verses" (2712) - but tactful enough not to flaunt her knowledge. I was confused by the passage about marriage, where she says that the purpose of her daughter's education was to make a good wife, while she wants her granddaughter not to marry ("[a virgin state] is undoubtedly safer than any marriage" (2713)). Does she consider her own daughter a failure in this respect, and hope that the granddaughter can get it right?
Montagu does seem to rub it in her daughter's face at the end: "I thought i owed you the justice to lay before you all the hazards attending matrimony...Perhaps you may have more success in the instructing of your daughter" (2714). I think she ends up just coming off pushy and insulting, telling her daughter not to make the same mistakes she did. The footnote on 2711 mentions that Montagu, at this time, had long been separated from her husband, so we could probably throw embittered in there too.
To add on to what TKim wrote, Montagu did seem to suggest that an education would occupy her granddaughter and convince her to remain in her parents home. She also stated, "The use of knowledge in our sex (beside of amusement of solitude) is moderate the passions and to learn to be contented with small expenses" (2713). Knowledge for woman and her granddaughter are then a form of self control.It is a private practice that allows woman to occupy their minds and control their "passions."
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