Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: A Vindication of Mary Wollstonecraft
- Chapter 1 Scripturally Annotated: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- List of Contentmatter
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Introduction
- Chapter I The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered
- Chapter II The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed
- Chapter III The Same Subject Continued
- Chapter IV Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced by Various Causes
- Chapter V Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt
- Chapter VI The Effect Which an Early Association of Ideas Has Upon the Character
- Chapter VII Modesty—Comprehensively Considered, and Not as a Sexual Virtue
- Chapter VIII Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation
- Chapter IX Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society
- Chapter X Parental Affection
- Chapter XI Duty to Parents
- Chapter XII On National Education
- Chapter XIII Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women Generates; With Concluding Reflections on the Moral Improvement that a Revolution in Female Manners Might Naturally Be Expected to Produce
- Chapter 2 Ripe for Revolution and Revelation
- Chapter 3 A Biblical Accounting for the Equality of Women
- Chapter 4 Femme Godwin and Her Religion
- Chapter 5 The Crafters of Wollstonecraft’s Religion
- Chapter 6 Fellow Heirs, Travelers, and Sojourners
- Chapter 7 Postmortem Rendering of Wollstonecraft’s Beliefs
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 5 - The Crafters of Wollstonecraft’s Religion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 March 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: A Vindication of Mary Wollstonecraft
- Chapter 1 Scripturally Annotated: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- List of Contentmatter
- Dedication
- Advertisement
- Introduction
- Chapter I The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered
- Chapter II The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed
- Chapter III The Same Subject Continued
- Chapter IV Observations on the State of Degradation to Which Woman Is Reduced by Various Causes
- Chapter V Animadversions on Some of the Writers Who Have Rendered Women Objects of Pity, Bordering on Contempt
- Chapter VI The Effect Which an Early Association of Ideas Has Upon the Character
- Chapter VII Modesty—Comprehensively Considered, and Not as a Sexual Virtue
- Chapter VIII Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of a Good Reputation
- Chapter IX Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society
- Chapter X Parental Affection
- Chapter XI Duty to Parents
- Chapter XII On National Education
- Chapter XIII Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women Generates; With Concluding Reflections on the Moral Improvement that a Revolution in Female Manners Might Naturally Be Expected to Produce
- Chapter 2 Ripe for Revolution and Revelation
- Chapter 3 A Biblical Accounting for the Equality of Women
- Chapter 4 Femme Godwin and Her Religion
- Chapter 5 The Crafters of Wollstonecraft’s Religion
- Chapter 6 Fellow Heirs, Travelers, and Sojourners
- Chapter 7 Postmortem Rendering of Wollstonecraft’s Beliefs
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, Wollstonecraft’s husband seemed to have been either misinformed about his wife’s religious training and beliefs or else was narcissistic in allowing his own cynicism about religion to skew his understanding and representation of hers. One aspect that he failed to reconcile in his rendering was the steady stream of religious people with whom she forged relationships who wielded a tremendous amount of influence on her. This chapter will identify those who had a hand in crafting her religious beliefs, those that appear in her works and letters. Thusly it refutes Godwin’s allegation that Wollstonecraft “received few lessons of religion in her youth” (Memoirs 35).
The Wollstonecrafts
Godwin claimed that Wollstonecraft’s parents were lapsed members of the Church of England, that she “received few lessons of religion in her youth,” that she created her own religion, and that she did not attend church services after 1787 (Memoirs 35–36). Yet Godwin contradicted himself earlier in the same paragraph when he wrote, “Mary had been bred in the principles of the church [sic] of England” (34). When did this breeding happen if not in her youth, especially if he argued that she stopped going to services after 1787?
Wollstonecraft’s parents were members of St. Botolph Without Bishopsgate and did have Wollstonecraft christened there on May 20, 1759 (Gordon 2005, 6). If she regularly attended church until 1787 as Godwin wrote (Memoirs 36), then why would he assume that she did not have many “lessons of religion in her youth” (35), for what else is taught in church other than religion?
Perhaps he meant that her parents were not religious, but there is no evidence of this, and how would have Wollstonecraft gone to church as a child if her parents had not taken her? There is no reference in any biography of her having any relatives outside her immediate family that had any influence or involvement with her when she was a child and was attending services. She had no evangelical aunt as had George Eliot (Marian Evans). When Wollstonecraft was four, the family left Spitalfields, the home of Wollstonecraft’s grandfather. After that they lived on farms. She would have been 14 when she came to know the Ardens, who would have influenced her greatly in forming her religious and philosophical ideas.
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- Information
- Wollstonecraft and Religion , pp. 279 - 304Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2024