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knowledge. Such a viewpoint proves sympathetic to women in the 18th century, whom the
Catholic Church and nobility were quick to condemn for engaging in premarital sex and having
children out of wedlock. What they failed to understand, however, were the enormous pressures
these women faced. Hume’s Of Love and Marriage explores women’s tendencies to resist
possessive marriages and a universal search of love, which provides a defense for the rampant
Early 18th marriages were largely a one sided affair; women were expected to stay at
home and raised the children while most husbands did as they pleased. Subordinate to men,
women’s personal thoughts and dreams were disregarded in favor of motherhood. Hume’s belief
in human experience would have spread the negative aspects of marriage by way of women’s
conversation enlarge much more the sphere of one’s experience and thought than those of
another.” (Miller) Wives speaking with other women of marriage would divulge the difficulty of
their lives to prospective brides. Young women, with stories from other wives, would most likely
see marriage as a bleak life with little enjoyment or freedom. This knowledge would discourage
However hesitant a young woman was to marry, however, she still had carnal desires.
Premarital sex was a sin, so the only sex free of fault available to women was with a husband.
With their knowledge of poor and harsh wifedom, women sought alternatives in the form of
premarital sex. Following this boom in fornication, women had children out of wedlock much
more often. Hume would argue that their experience through conversation was responsible for
women’s avoidance of marriage: their lust needed satisfaction, but their hesitance to marry led to
Under tremendous expectations, husbands still demanded obedience from their wives, but
Hume came to women’s defense: “that if we [men] did not abuse our authority, they would never
think it worth while to dispute it.” (Miller) According to Hume, it only makes sense that wives
are apt to disobey their husbands when they are held under tyrannical authority. Conversely, less
oppression from their husbands would mean less chance of rebellion of wives against them.
Hume would see the startling increase of out of wedlock babies as a response to women’s
domestic lives. If men were to be less strict with their wives, the marriage would be less
oppressive. Thus, the reputation of marriage would be less intimidating to potential brides. These
brides would then more easily accept marriage to satisfy both their financial and carnal needs.
businesslike, so calculating, as a peasant marriage that was often dictated by the need of the
couple’s families” (Mckay) Marriage wasn’t a joining of two people meant to be together: it was
a financial endeavor. Daughters could gain fiduciary stability by marrying the proper gentleman,
and their families were quick to find one for them, with the girls getting little say in who they
would spend the rest of their lives with. The idea of marrying for love without concerns of
finances was ludicrous: “Members of the older generation were often high critical of the lack of
responsibility they saw in the early marriages of the poor” (Mckay). Hume’s view of marriages
based on love is much more sympathetic. He suggests that readers consider Plato’s allegory of
the Androgyne, a creature which was once man and woman but, split in half by Jupiter, must
now “remedy this disorder, and to bestow some comfort, at least, on the human race in their
forlorn situation, Jupiter sent down LOVE and CARE to collect the broken halves of human
kind, and piece them together.” (Miller) Hume’s endorsement of this allegory is appropriate for
the situation of women living in populous cities. Free from the pestering of the close, village
family in the late 18th century, women in the city could pursue notions of love as openly as they
wanted to. Their spontaneous marriages in search of love would be explained by Hume as an
inherent desire to find their other half. New trends in weddings that weren’t financially focused
Common women in the later 18th century were changing: though their freedoms weren’t
fully realized, they were beginning to defy the obligations that society had forced upon them.
Hume would argue that women were driven to premarital sex, a result of their negative
experiences with marriage. Along with the romantic idea of Androgyne, Hume wouldn’t have
Miller, Eugene. "Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, Part III, Essay V, OF LOVE
AND MARRIAGE." Library of Economics and Liberty. 1987. Web. 30 Nov. 2010.
<http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL44.html>.
McKay, John P., Bennett D. Hill, and John Buckler. A History of Western Society. Boston: