Mary Astell: Social Contract Theory and Marriage (Notes)

8.1 Introduction

Mary Astell (1666–1731): English philosopher, feminist, political theorist; born in Newcastle upon Tyne, moved to Chelsea in London; never married; supported herself through writing and female patronage.
Astell’s project: offer a thorough critique of social contract theory via marriage as an analogue, aiming to provoke radical socio-political change to improve women’s condition.
Method and context:
- Uses irony and non-literal rhetoric to navigate dangerous public reception for women authors.
- Some works published anonymously or in genres deemed suitable for women (fiction/poetry) to avoid backlash.
- Preface in Reflections highlights the risk of speaking truth to power and the idea that bold truths may be spoken incognito but lose force when the speaker is known.
Central claim of the chapter: Astell’s critique of social contract theory serves as a vehicle for rethinking marriage and, more broadly, the political order to enhance women’s freedom.
Mazarin case as a pivotal inspiration: the high-profile Mazarin divorce illustrates how marriage politics constrains women’s freedom and credibility; Mancini’s public flight and disinheritance illuminate structural inequities that Astell seeks to expose.
Interpretive puzzle: Astell’s use of irony complicates reading—is she endorsing or subverting the very structures she critiques?
Contextual note: Astell’s critique aligns with a broader early modern concern with how power, institutions, and social norms perpetuate oppression. The chapter situates her within debates between Tories and Whigs and in relation to John Locke’s liberal ideas.

8.2 Astell's philosophical projects

8.2.1 An interpretive puzzle

Main aim: improve the status of women; central work is A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (Proposal) advocating formal education for women via a proposed women’s educational retreat (early version of a women’s college).
Core claim: women are fundamentally equal to men; apparent female inferiority stems from deficient social and political conditions (epistemic gaps, lack of education).
Epistemic aim: educated women will develop better thinking, virtue, piety, and meaningful freedom; education is a path to epistemic and moral empowerment (Astell, 2002; 2013).
Astell engages in political debates of her time (e.g., Moderation Truly Stated, A Fair Way with the Dissenters and their Patrons, An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion, 1704).
Interpretive complication with Reflections: irony and rhetorical signals are strategic, given risks faced by unmarried women publishing political/philosophical works.
Key Thinker: Damaris Cudworth Masham (1658–1708): friend of Locke, correspondence with Leibniz; lived with Masham and her husband (Essex). Masham’s works include A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Virtuous or Christian Life (1705). Masham’s Discourse responded to Astell and Norris; her Occasional Thoughts responded to Astell’s The Christian Religion (1705).
Reading challenge: Astell’s intent sometimes unclear; ironies may mask a radical aim to undermine conventional contractarian readings.
Risk and strategy: Astell’s approach showcases the political danger for women philosophers and the necessity of cautious articulation.

8.2.2 Social contract theory and liberalism

Central questions: political obligation and legitimate authority; who counts as legitimate ruler and what subjects owe to them.
Hobbes and Locke as touchstones:
- Hobbes: state of nature as an original state of war; individuals consent to surrender nearly all rights to a Sovereign to secure peace and safety; legitimacy arises from consent and the assurance of punishment for rule-breaking.
- Locke: government legitimate if rational, free, equal individuals could have consented without coercion; consent grounds political obligation; civil society emerges from the preservation of natural rights (life, liberty, property).
Astell’s divergence: emphasis on communities (women, friends, family); critiques social contract theory through the microcosm of marriage.
The marriage-social contract parallel:
- Many contemporaries treated family as a miniature commonwealth; the husband’s authority was read as analogous to sovereign power.
- Some scholars (e.g., Patricia Springborg) argue Astell condemns the direct transfer of political contract structure to marriage, suggesting God authorizes sovereignty in a different framework (sacrament) rather than human-made contracts.
The book’s view: Astell does not outright reject the parallel between social contract and marriage but uses it to reveal fundamental flaws in contract theory’s structure (human nature, sovereignty, consent, freedom vs. slavery) as they appear in marriage.
Astell’s critique aims at a more radical political program: reconfiguring the socio-political institution of marriage toward equality and mutual rational agency.
Key Points (8.2.2):
- Astell is committed to improving women’s social and political conditions.
- Some claims are ironic, rhetorical, or non-literal.
- She uses parallels between marriage and social contract theory to critique both.

8.3 Problematizing social contract theory

Like other women philosophers, Astell faces intense scrutiny; she critiques social contract theory in subtle, careful ways.
Overall claim: the theory is structurally flawed and its application to marriage reveals deeper problems in power, agency, and political subjecthood.
Astell’s program suggests a remedy: redefine the socio-political institution of marriage to establish a relation of radical equality and mutual support.
8.3 sections summarize key lines of critique:

8.3.1 Human nature

Rejection of natural inferiority of women; humans are rational souls first, bodies second; equality follows from being created as rational beings by God.
She argues the apparent natural difference is a contingent product of custom and social conditions, not an essential fact.
Scriptural and rational critique of claims of male superiority; natural equality is asserted, but with attention to the epistemic asymmetry that prevents women from making the same arguments.
Critique of pre-social “state of nature” readings: Astell rejects the claim that humans are inherently unequal in a way that justifies male domination; instead, gendered inequality is a social and conventional product.
Custom matter: custom makes women appear inferior by limiting access to education and knowledge; custom and institutions reinforce each other.
Quote (paraphrased): the Custom of the World has put Women into a State of Subjection, but right cannot be proved from the fact, nor can vice predominate justify it.
This challenges the methodological move in social contract theory of deriving normative conclusions from descriptive facts about human nature.
Relationship to Locke/Hobbes: while they rely on a pre-social state to ground political authority, Astell points to the impact of custom and social conditions on actual freedom.

8.3.2 Sovereignty

The domestic sovereign (husband) in marriage wields absolute power; the wife’s fortune and person come under his power; desires of the heart are subject to the learned casuists’ interpretations of obedience.
Astell argues the domestic sovereign’s power is not grounded in rational understanding but in brute force or physical strength, which is incompatible with divine or rational authority.
The remedy: sovereignty should be exercised in trust for the governed, not as naked domination; the obligation of the ruled should be respect and cooperative engagement rather than blind obedience.
Vision of marriage: a model of unfelt hierarchy where two rational equals function as equals, with governance by mutual duty rather than coercive domination.
Astell’s provocative claim: women as rightful sovereigns over men; women can, in Scripture, exercise influence for the common good, including within marriage.
This critique challenges the legitimacy of hereditary or absolute monarchies by drawing a parallel with domestic authority in marriage.
Readings on the claim that wives’ obedience should be rooted in God’s will, not just male authority; the ideal marriage would resemble friendship with a divinely instituted but non-hierarchical structure.
The point about “domestic sovereignty” stresses that power should not be tied solely to gender; rather, it should be grounded in reason and mutual understanding.

8.3.3 Consent

Two questions: (i) Do wives consent to marriage and to the rule of their husbands? (ii) Is consent sufficient to ground political obligation?
Astell’s approach uses irony to present answers that appear both affirmative and negative, signaling a structural issue in consent-based theories.
On the first question: she implies some degree of consent when noting, “The Domestic Sovereign is without Dispute Elected”; she discusses the surrender of power at the start of marriage and the social pressures shaping consent.
On the second question: consent can ground political obligation in theory, but Astell suggests that unequal social, political, and epistemic conditions make genuine consent suspect; marriage is often accompanied by coercive social norms that limit options and true choice.
Resting in law and custom: marriage transfers material assets to the husband, limiting independence; thus, consent under such conditions may not justify political obligation.
Alternate readings: consent could be grounded in a Christian sacrament rather than a political contract; if so, obedience should be to God rather than to the husband, and the obligation to resist compels if the husband commands sin.
Astell’s likely stance: she oscillates but leans toward negative readings of consent as a basis for political obligation, while using irony to prevent straightforward censure.
The interpretive strategy: read the affirmative readings as ironic or strategically provocative to expose weaknesses in consent-based justifications.

8.3.4 Freedom and slavery

Hobbes and Locke ground freedom in equal status and the ability to keep or transfer rights; Lockean property rights are central to freedom (owning one’s labor and self).
Coverture in English common law (17th–18th centuries): wives’ legal personhood subsumed under their husbands; wives could not own property; pre-marital property transferred to husbands; wives treated as quasi-slaves in legal terms.
Astell’s direct claim: women, especially wives, are slaves under the social contract framework; a question of whether slavery is justified or natural as per the male-dominated contract.
Astell quotes: “If all Men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves?”; she compares the arbitrary will of men to the condition of slavery, highlighting a mismatch with the Lockean ideal of freedom tied to self-ownership.
This critique ties into broader debates about whether freedom can be secured within a system that denies women property and legal personhood.
Scholarship debates on how to interpret this passage:
- Broad (2014) treats the claim as literal: marriage embodies a form of Lockean slavery.
- Springborg (2005) suggests Astell exposes Whig hypocrisy: requiring women to obey in private while men resist similar obedience in public politics.
- The interpretation remains contested: is Astell endorsing passive obedience, or does she advocate resistance under conditions that require resisting coercion or sin?
Real-world implications: the critique points to the moral and legal injustices of coverture and gendered subordination; it also raises questions about religious justification for such hierarchies.
Astell’s parallel to slavery is controversial because slavery in the modern sense involved colonial coercion and racialized domination; some scholars argue Astell’s comparison is aimed at domestic power imbalances rather than universalizing a claim about racialized slavery.

8.3.4 Key points about freedom and slavery (summary)

Astell problematizes the Lockean notion that property rights guarantee freedom when women are legally non-persons.
She argues that social and epistemic conditions are essential to real freedom, not merely formal contracts.
The critique emphasizes relational aspects of freedom and autonomy (in later scholarship, relational autonomy is a modern framing of freedom as embedded in social relations).
Astell’s analysis challenges both the moral defensibility of social contracts and the adequacy of marriage as a paradigm for political obligation.

8.4 Marriage as a social contract?

Does marriage function as a social contract in Astell’s framework? The Second Treatise presents marriage as a conjugal society formed by voluntary compact, where the man’s rule is natural and justified by superiority; contract terms are socially conventional rather than natural.
Tension: while this reading might appear progressive, Locke also posits women as naturally inferior, which undermines fair terms of the marriage contract; the terms cannot be genuinely fair if one party is socially designated as inferior.
Threat of “threat advantage” (a Rawlsian critique): if one party has more information or power, the terms of the contract are biased; Rawls’ veil of ignorance seeks to counter this bias by removing knowledge of one’s place in society.
Astell’s use of contract language may serve two purposes:
- To illustrate the ways in which social contract theory gets underwritten by unequal social conditions in marriage.
- To offer a vehicle for reform by rethinking the terms and the underlying authority structure of marriage.
Two senses of marriage (as used in Astell’s thinking):
- Marriage as a Christian sacrament (sacred, divinely instituted hierarchy).
- Marriage as a socio-political institution (contract-like, with consent and authority relations between spouses).
Ambiguity exploited: Astell repeatedly leverages the tension between sacramental and contractual understandings to critique Whig political commitments and to push for a more equal, friendship-like marriage.
Conclusion of this section: Astell neither fully rejects marriage as sacrament nor fully endorses marriage as a contract; rather, she uses the dual sense to reveal and challenge the structural flaws of social contract theory and to argue for a reformed, more relational model of marriage.

8.5 Conclusion

Astell’s broader aim: critique of structures that produce gender inequality, using the parallel between social contract theory and the socio-political institution of marriage to reveal shared flaws.
Her overarching project: to lay groundwork for a radical revision of marriage that aligns with her commitments about human nature, capacity, and mutual respect.
The public/private divide is central to feminist political theory: personal arrangements (like marriage) are deeply connected to political norms and practices; the personal is indeed political.
Astell’s method: reveal how consent, sovereignty, and freedom operate in a framework that simultaneously legitimates certain gendered hierarchies; propose reforms that would render marriage a truly voluntary, equal, and mutually supportive association.
Final takeaway: women are political subjects; reforming the socio-political relation of marriage is essential to achieving genuine gender equality and broader political emancipation.

8.4 Key points (summary)

Marriage has two senses for Astell: socio-political institution and Christian sacrament.
Equivocating on the sense of marriage allows her to make radical political criticisms.

8.5 Conclusion (final synthesis)

Astell’s project uses the parallel between marriage and social contract theory to show that both suffer from similar structural flaws.
The aim is to promote a radical revision of marriage to better reflect human nature and the conditions necessary for flourishing, especially for women.
The chapter connects this critique to broader feminist arguments about the public/private distinction and the political significance of private life.

The Mazarin case (Key Concept)

The Mazarin divorce (Duke and Duchess of Mazarin, Hortense Mancini) provided a contemporary backdrop for Astell’s reflections on marriage and female agency.
Mancini’s public exposure and disinheritance illustrated how social practices around marriage constrain women’s autonomy and credibility, reinforcing Astell’s critique of marriage as a site of political power and gendered subordination.
Astell uses the case to argue that women cannot freely choose marriage or exercise power within it under prevailing social and legal arrangements.

Key Thinker: Damaris Masham

Damaris Masham (1658–1708): daughter of Ralph Cudworth, corresponded with Locke and Leibniz; hosted Locke at her home; published works anonymously like Astell; her Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts (1705) situate her in dialogue with Astell.
Masham’s engagement with Astell and Norris's Letters Concerning the Love of God; her influence on and response to Enlightenment debates around religion and epistemology.

Key Thinker: Judith Drake

Judith Drake (active 1696–1723): contemporary and friend of Astell; An Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (1696) argued against claims of female intellectual inferiority.
Drake links female equality to class and nature; she explicitly connects women’s enslavement to male domination with the enslavement of Africans by Europeans.
Drake’s work helps illuminate the broader feminist natural-rights position circulating among late 17th–early 18th century women philosophers.

Relationships to other thinkers and debates

Astell interacts with Hobbes’s and Locke’s theories by challenging their assumptions about human nature, sovereignty, consent, and freedom—especially as those ideas bear on women and marriage.
The chapter contextualizes Astell’s critique within Whig and Tory political debates and contemporaries’ criticisms of paternalistic authority and hereditary monarchy.
The debate about custom and epistemic injustice: Astell emphasizes how cultural norms and limited epistemic access contribute to gender inequality; education and empowerment are essential solutions.

Study questions (reflective prompts)

1) What is a plausible reason for Astell's use of irony?
2) Why does Astell talk about marriage alongside concepts from social contract theory?
3) How does Astell's view of human nature differ from Hobbes and Locke's?
4) What does Astell think a marriage is and how does that compare to what she thinks a marriage should be?
5) What is the significance of Astell's claim that domestic sovereigns are elected?
6) Why does Astell critique consent as the basis of political obligation?
7) What does Astell mean by comparing marriage to slavery?
8) What are the two senses of marriage at work in Astell's thinking?

Mary Astell: Social Contract Theory and Marriage (Notes)

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Astell's philosophical projects

8.2.1 An interpretive puzzle

8.2.2 Social contract theory and liberalism

8.3 Problematizing social contract theory

8.3.1 Human nature

8.3.2 Sovereignty

8.3.3 Consent

8.3.4 Freedom and slavery

8.3.4 Key points about freedom and slavery (summary)

8.4 Marriage as a social contract?

8.5 Conclusion

8.4 Key points (summary)

8.5 Conclusion (final synthesis)

The Mazarin case (Key Concept)

Key Thinker: Damaris Masham

Key Thinker: Judith Drake

Relationships to other thinkers and debates

Study questions (reflective prompts)

Further reading (selected from the provided list)