Mary Astell's Thoughts on Men

According to Mary Astell, who argues for the education of women in her piece Some Reflections upon Marriage, says that men are part of the problem.  Is it that men are too proud to respect women, or don’t give women much regard in general? She does mention that men are “too humane, too wise to venture” (Astell, 2285-6), which might imply the latter of the question.  However, men are certainly fond of their wisdom and superiority, and don’t want to “waste their time and debase their good sense” (Astell, 2285), indicating a sense of pride on their part.  To prove which part of the question is right, we’ll look at Astell’s thoughts on men in her piece, and see if we can find the answer there.

In argument for the former half of the question, Astell describes men and their contempt to leave women as they are, and not further their education.  The reason for this, she says, is that “man has too much bravery, he is too just and too good to assault a defenseless enemy, and if he did inveigh against the women it was only do them service” (Astell, 2286).  Here, Astell claims that because men have presumptions about women being weak, they wouldn’t dare assault or interfere in their affairs, unless they believed it was necessary to do so for the women’s own good.  Now this statement reeks of a superiority complex on the men’s part, and reflects their pride and lack of understanding women in general.

As for the latter, Astell makes the point that men are the cause for creating foolish women who let their expectations get ahead of themselves in regards to marriage, only to find it not as pleasing as they had hoped.  In marriage, women are treated like slaves, and left in the dark, according to Astell, because men wish to not to educate them.  Ironically, they are the perfect type to teach women, because they have “all the advantages of nature”, but sadly “are so far from acquitting themselves as they ought, from living according to that reason and excellent understanding they so much boast of” (Astell, 2288).  Therefore, it can be expected that “a woman who is reckoned silly enough in herself, at least comparatively, and whom men take care to make yet more so” (Astell, 2288) won’t get an education because men don’t practice what they preach.

So when we compare the two sides of the same question, we come up with two similar results.  On one hand, men are too proud to educate women, because they consider themselves superior and feel no need to interfere in their lives.  But on the other end, men simply don’t care about women, because despite their great wisdom, they don’t practice it in real life, and end up not giving women the education they need to be better wives.  When we look at the evidence in the piece itself, it becomes apparent that the answer to the question above is both.  Men don’t give much regard to the “soulless” women who aren’t worth their time, and they see themselves as better than women out of pride.