One of Mary Astell’s contemporaries was the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), who was a hugely influential pioneer in the fields of epistemology and political philosophy, becoming regarded as “the Father of Liberalism”. Although the two never directly collaborated or published any correspondence between them, Astell referred to and even criticized Locke’s ideas a number of times in her works. As such, an interesting comparison can be made between Astell and Locke’s philosophical ideas, particularly on certain social issues.
On Education
One philosophical topic in which Astell and Locke held almost identical positions was that of education. Both of them agreed on the importance of education as a means to produce virtuous individuals, and they also agreed that there should be a particular emphasis on targeting the mind and its capabilities through education. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education, Locke writes that the main component of education for children should be moral education, with the intention of shaping their minds to be sound and to instil virtue in them. Similarly, in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Astell writes about how a high-quality philosophical education would give women a stronger importance for truly virtuous values, rather than the ones which society has directed them towards. Astell maintains that it is only through this targeted education that women would be able to live virtuous lives. As such, it can be seen that both Astell and Locke see education as a tool by which men, women, and children can be led to live virtuously.
More than just being educated to develop the correct virtues, Locke believed in the educational objective of “setting the mind right”, so that individuals may develop a strong capacity for rational judgement. This would then allow them to correctly assess “those who wish to lead them astray”, and ultimately prevent them from acting on the advice of unqualified individuals or people looking to take advantage of them (Broad 735). Like Locke, Astell also believed that women should receive an education which would improve the capabilities of their minds so they could think for themselves and protect themselves against those who would try to “govern [the women] according to their discretion” (Broad 736). She believed that this educational outcome was especially important for women so that they could “retain their freedom of judgement” even in situations where they were dependent on men, such as in a marriage (Broad 736). This shows how both Locke and Astell believed that education could be a form of protection, through the sharpening of one’s rational judgement.
Interestingly, while Astell argues that women should receive a more comprehensive education than simply being taught how to be an ideal wife (by learning housework and arts at home), Locke recommends this very form of education for young boys. He suggested that it would be more beneficial to boys to be educated as girls were, to “learn useful and necessary crafts of the house and estate” at home as girls did, as this would actually teach them useful and applicable skills (Simons 143). This is a relatively impartial view to gendered education, compared to other philosophers of the time, but it does somewhat clash with Astell’s view that such an education did not benefit women and provide them with the ability to live the most virtuous life they could. Her work A Serious Proposal was entirely centered around her proposal of an all-female educational institution which would give women a higher-order, holistic philosophical education, which she deemed much more necessary than the traditional education women received at home to prepare them for marriage. Meanwhile, Locke seems to be advocating that both boys and girls should receive not only this type of education, but also the traditional education which girls and women were given at home, which shows a differing nuance in Locke and Astell’s philosophical views on education.
On Marriage and Slavery
Astell and Locke hold similar philosophical opinions on slavery; Astell just contextualises slavery in the sphere of marriage, with regards to the condition of women. Astell notably draws on ideas from Locke’s Two Treatises of Government to support her argument in Some Reflections upon Marriage that marriage is a form of slavery and should not be something required of women. Referring to Locke’s definition of slavery as being subject to the “inconstant, uncertain, unknown Arbitrary Will of another Man”, Astell claims that marriage was also a form of slavery, as it forced women into a similarly uncertain and helpless state of subjugation to the will of their husbands (Broad 728). Astell describes how women are expected to relinquish ownership of any material property they might own, such as land or money, to their husbands – and are also forced to surrender their free will and submit completely to their husbands’ wishes. This aligns even more strongly with the Lockean definition of slavery, and shows that the two agree strongly on what exactly constitutes slavery.
However, Astell and Locke have differing views on the rights of the enslaved. Locke maintains that the law of self-preservation gives enslaved subjects the rights to resist their oppressors by any means, including physical violence. Locke maintains that slavery is immoral because it breaks the Law of Nature, which claims that every man has a right to “freedom from arbitrary power”; when oppressors enslave individuals, they break this natural law and thus “entitle their victims to reply in whatever manner is necessary to defend their lives” (Welchman 70). Astell, somewhat surprisingly, does not believe that wives, despite being effectively enslaved by their husbands, should be able to resist their husbands. Instead, she thinks that once women have consented to marriage, they should “be entirely submissive” to their husbands in order to be good wives. If they do not wish to give up their free will and submit to their husbands, Astell advises them to simply “never consent to be a wife” (Broad 732). This belief is informed by Astell’s adherence to the Anglical doctrine of passive obedience, which states that one can only exercise self-preservation by obeying their superiors, with no allowance for active resistance (Broad 732). It is also interesting that Astell believes that women can voluntarily consent to slavery by agreeing to marriage, as this again contradicts Locke, who affirms that humans cannot “legitimately consent to give their freedom to another person” in a civil society (Richardson 103). These points highlight how Locke and Astell might agree on the definition of slavery, but ultimately disagree on what rights should be granted to slaves.
Works Cited
Broad, Jacqueline. “Mary Astell on marriage and Lockean slavery.” History of Political Thought 35.4, 2014, pp. 717-738.
“John Locke.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke.
Simons, Martin. “Why Can’t a Man Be More Like a Woman? (A Note on John Locke’s Educational Thought).” Educational Theory 40.1 (1990): 135-45.
Astell, Mary. A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Parts I and II, P. Springborg (ed.), Broadview Literary Texts, Ontario, 2002.
Locke, John. Some thoughts concerning education, 1693. Scolar Press, 1970.
Locke, John. Locke: Two treatises of government. Cambridge University Press, 1967.
“Some Thoughts Concerning Education.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes, www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/lockethoughts/section2/.
Welchman, Jennifer. “Locke on Slavery and Inalienable Rights.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 25, no. 1, 1995, pp. 67–81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40231899. Accessed 23 Apr. 2021.
Richardson, Theresa. “John Locke and the Myth of Race in America: Demythologizing the Paradoxes of the Enlightenment as Visited in the Present.” Philosophical Studies in Education 42 (2011).
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